


The Myth About Lovebirds

by superserums



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 40's bucky barnes, Bucky and Tony get closure, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Husband isn't anyone in canon, Hydra Agent Reader (Marvel), Infinity War never happens, Nomad Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Reader has a SHIELD agent husband, Reader's Husband dies, Slight Enemies Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Sokovia Accords, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Roger's has issues, Team Cap Bonding, Tony and Steve actually make up, like really slow burn, lots of flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-20 16:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19380097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superserums/pseuds/superserums
Summary: The story of a girl, her husband who passes away, two love birds, and a soldier out of time who just happens to fall in love with her in Bucharest of all places. In the end, they both find a way to heal.





	1. Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A series of snapshots into a lost love and a woman's decision to go looking for a super-soldier that has disappeared off the face of the earth. Needless to say, Steve Rogers is shocked to find out that sometimes the past does come knocking at your door. 
> 
> Some things to take note as you read so you don't get confused:  
> \- Disclaimer that the husband isn't anyone from the mcu and neither is the reader.  
> -Also every time he's and him's are italicized AND bolded it's in reference to the reader's husband!  
> -Flashbacks are marked by italics!  
> -The reader meets Steve initially when she's taken by HYDRA (post The Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron) her husband is a completely different man and a SHIELD agent who goes looking for her after her disappearance but he dies a year after the events of Civil war before she meets up with Steve again.  
> -As stated above, this does take place after Civil War when Steve becomes nomad and is on the run with Nat, Sam, and Bucky and makes frequent references to other mcu movies.

There is a myth about lovebirds that almost everyone seems to believe. 

 

A monogamous species of birds, they mate for life, finding a partner they deem suitable and staying with them until the end of their days. 

 

She was always taken aback by them, small birds of green, pink, and blue colors that chirped happily in the morning, singing a song of love and hope that echoed through a house in a bittersweet tune that reminded almost anyone of the heat of a carefree summer and the salty taste of sweat and pepper jelly. 

 

When she married **_him_ **, they took in two lovebirds of green and blue coloration. They had brought them a cage, extravagant with enough room for the two of them to at least roam and keep each other occupied in which they had kept in the living room by the large window.

 

They would sing to her every morning, their song simple yet almost dreamlike in an odd way. 

 

 **_He_ ** joked that it would be their alarm clock for the rest of their days and sometimes even jokingly commented on how the song was even tiresome, how she should teach them another. 

 

But she loved them with all her heart and she loved their song, no matter how tedious, even more.

 

Cuddled up on the couch with **_him_ **, watching the fire burn in the cobblestone fireplace, she would whisper stories to him of the luck they brought to married couples and the ideas she had about their souls being intertwined with the beautiful birds. 

 

Of course, **_he_ ** listened as her face lit up with an almost childlike glee in the telling of her stories, just as he listened to her sweet voice as she danced in the morning, the sunlight seeping through their window in a warm embrace as she swayed, the birds on her shoulder mimicking her bittersweet song. 

 

The birds sang to her every morning, the same song she would hum throughout the day, always on the tip of her tongue and drawn out slowly, like the honey he would put in her tea. 

 

The only time the birds didn’t sing, though, was the day **_he_ ** died. 

 

There is a myth about lovebirds that almost everyone seems to believe- the idea that when a lovebird’s mate dies, the other will be driven to such immense and inconceivable pain that they will promptly follow. 

 

The day **_he_ ** died, the bird she swore was connected to him died too. 

 

And after the bird had died, his mate followed, so pained by the loss of her love it drove her into a depression so palpable that the girl swore she could feel it radiate from the suddenly gigantic cage in her dark living room. 

 

When her bird died and the house was suddenly silent for the first time in years the night of his death, it was almost as if the myth became a reality. 

 

Somewhere in her, in the absence of a birds song, it was as if she had died too. 

 

\-- 

 

**Present Day New York**

**January 2017.**

 

She used to believe that, hidden within the early streaks of morning light pouring through her window and onto her face, she would be able to see **_him_ **\- smiling in grey sweats and a black t-shirt, pale hands gripping a plate of pancakes as he waited for her to wake up, the faint sound of a birds song echoing through their house in a warm, inviting feeling that made her feel at home. 

 

Groggy and only half coherent, she would smile back, eyes closing to the sound of his laugh and the happy chirps of her lovebirds as she enjoyed the foreign feeling of happiness envelope her body like his arms would when he held her as they danced in the living room. 

 

But, when she opened them again, he would be gone- an evil phantom that allowed her to reach out just enough to touch him before he disappeared right before her eyes. 

 

The bed was cold and she was alone. The house was silent and her birds had died years before, following him in leaving her. 

 

Suddenly, despite the spring sun seeping through her window and into her sleepy eyes, the whole house seemed to be freezing. 

 

In a desperate search for warmth, she pulled herself out of bed and stared at the unfamiliar face in the window adjacent from her bed. 

 

Watching as the stranger took a deep breath, she made up her mind. 

She would visit him today. 

 

           -------

 

_“You know, when they took you, I thought I had lost you,” he whispered in her ear that sunny summer morning._

 

_They had gotten up early, right at the crack of dawn and, in coffee stained book pages and bitter kisses, they had decided to spend the day having a picnic._

 

_Gathering pastries from all the bakeries New York had to offer, he had driven her out of the city and to their meadow, a quaint little patch of land filled with every flower you could imagine._

 

_During their first year of marriage, he had built a swing that hung high up on a branch in the large tree at the very foot of the highest hill._

 

_She had adored it and almost every weekend since they would get away and he would watch her swing as she sang one of her songs, the flowers blowing in the summer breeze._

 

_That day, they sat under the tree, noting how particularly hot the world was and simply wanting to hide from the humidity and sticky heat._

 

_She had worn her favorite red dress and was perched up against the tree, a book in her hands that he noted was something along the lines of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice._

 

_“Would you have moved on?” she asked simply, her eyes never leaving the pages of her book._

 

_Outwardly, she looked completely fine- a sense of calm and happiness written all over her features. But he had known her in ways that she didn’t even know herself and the anxious tightening of her grip on the brown book cover gave her away in an instant._

 

_When she had married him, he had knowingly brought her into his world- a wild one of crime and danger that any normal girl would flee from at first glance._

 

_But not her. She was always too stubborn and too in love to care about the consequences, and despite how infuriating that was, he loved her because of it._

 

_It made his heart swell- the way she loved him so much she would risk it all for him- the prospect of a normal life, safety, a family, all of it._

_But it also gave him all the more reason to fight- to fight for her, for their future, their family, all of it._

 

_And when she was taken by HYDRA, it was almost as if he had lost the fight, that he had failed her in some way, that he was a fool in thinking he’d be able to keep her safe._

 

_So he refused to stop searching._

 

_She was alive, somewhere and he would have searched the ends of the earth just to find her again._

 

_And in truth, he did exactly that, following HYDRA’s  tracks through Bucharest, Rome, Santorini, everywhere until he found her, until he was sitting right next to her, watching her read in that beautiful red dress of hers, her hair blowing in the soft summer breeze._

 

_He thought for a moment, pursing his lips as he formulated an answer._

 

_“Would you want me to?” he asked her._

 

 _She stops and closes her book with a determined_ **_thump_ ** _of the pages colliding, her hands instead grasping his face and looking into his eyes._

 

_She’s stronger now, what they made her into- a goddess almost- lending her a sort of strength that was almost unimaginable, even in a world that garnered beings such as Captain America, Ironman, and Thor._

 

_He looks at her in return- really looks at her and the scars on the side of her face she used to not have, her overall strength and sudden proficiency in hiding almost every part of herself from him._

 

_The world had been unkind to her._

 

_“I would,” she says, after a short period of silence. “I wouldn’t want you to be alone and pining for me when I'm six feet under. All I ever want is for you to be happy, even if it’s not with me.”_

 

_She watches his face light up, his smile kind and charming in a way that brought butterflies into her stomach, reminding her of when she was a child, hung up on a locker room love that would only ever be an embarrassing story to tell._

 

_Super-assassin be damned, she would always turn to mush around him._

 

_“If I ever die,” he whispers and she kisses him, determinedly pressing her lips to his in a desperate attempt to rewrite the words slipping out of his mouth._

 

 _She would give it all for them to stay like this- safe and enveloped by the sun and the East Coast heat together under the shade of_ **_their_ ** _tree in_ **_their_ ** _meadow._

 

_But she was a fool to think that their tough and dangerous world would ever grant them that, and so she simply kisses him, eyes closed tight and heart intertwined with his, memorizing every aspect of that moment before it ends._

 

_“Don’t,” she begs, a silent plea not to him but to the harsh reality of the world they were cursed to live in._

 

_“If I ever die,” he repeats firmly, voice hoarse as he speaks in between kisses. “I want you to move on, have children, and bring them here. I want you to be happy.”_

 

 _“I am happy,” she would say in return, her hands grasping his tightly, as if he would simply fade away if she loosened her grip. “I’m happy with you and it’ll be_ **_our_ ** _children we bring here, i’m speaking it into existence.”_

 

_Laughing, he shakes his head and stares up at her, admiring her beauty in the summer sun._

 

_“The world is unkind,” he states with a finality that makes her stomach churn in distaste, as if he knew of his future on that perfect day and already couldn’t change it._

 

_“The world is unkind,” she repeats, softer, her eyes fluttering shut in defeat as she pressed her forehead to his._

 

_“But you, my love, you are my world and it’s my duty to make sure that my world lives on, even if it’s in a future i’m not a part of.”_

 

_\--------_

 

Ever since she was a child, she had sang- whether that be in her youth choir at church or as an elective throughout high school and college. 

 

In fact, it was her love in singing that made her feel so connected to her birds, and the night she had brought them home in a tattered shoebox, their exasperated chirps emitting from within, she had sung to them. 

 

They had been chicks then, newly hatched and unwanted but hopeful in the prospect of a new home and he swore that the moment she laid eyes on them, there would be a lifelong bond. 

 

After all, lovebirds did live for almost fifteen years. 

 

Curled up by the fire, she would hum a sweet tune- the bittersweet melody of Audrey Hepburn’s soulful rendition of Moon River on her tongue as if her intention was to sing them to sleep and, in time, they learned to sing with her, perched on her shoulder tweeting the ballad of two starry eyed lovers seeking after a grand adventure before they meet their rainbows end. 

 

Besides the birds, she sang to **_him_ **, pulling him close to her under the orange hued light of the setting sun as they danced in their flower filled meadow. 

 

Back then, she had even vowed to sing to him every day for the rest of their lives, humming sweet sonorous lullabies as they maneuvered through life, growing older and older until she would be singing to their grandchildren as she tucked them into bed, watching as a new generation of their originally tiny family grew all within the presence of a birds song in their welcoming house. 

 

The day he died, though, she swore was the first time since she learned how to talk that she didn’t sing. 

 

Her heart was heavy and her throat burned, her eyes stinging from the tears that decorated her cheeks. 

 

If you were to have asked her then how it felt to lose the one person you adored, she would have said that it felt as if every song that ever existed and changed the lives of hundreds of people suddenly disappeared. 

 

It felt as if your head was being held underwater and your lungs were faced with the threat of exploding if you didn’t at least invite some semblance of airflow into your lungs but being unable to move a muscle. 

 

It was as if she was suspended, a limp puppet on a string that felt nothing and said no words, a knife hanging in thin air as if representing the tension that would never leave her, the pressure to scream, to cry, to fall apart and simply just follow him, wherever it is that he went when he left her. 

 

And yet she pressed on, remembering the perfect day in their meadow in which he whispered against her lips that she was his world and that he would give everything up in order for her to keep going even despite his possible untimely death. 

 

Breathing in the spring afternoon air, she made her way down to meet him, pink peonies wrapped neatly in twine and brown paper in hand as she sang, her broken heart on her shirtsleeves as she dreamed of a world in which he was still there, listening to her voice and kissing her, his lips tasting of sea salt and the promise of a future in which they were invincible. 

 

Sighing, she instead faced the reality of his tombstone, whispering stories of her week as she repeated her routine in replacing the wilted peonies with new ones, humming their song in between words in a silent fulfillment of her promise to sing to him every day of their lives. 

 

Staring down at the tombstone and the words engraved onto the extravagant marble, she simply placed the peonies down neatly, promising that she would come back before turning on her heel promptly, determined to leave the premises before even his grave could witness her tears. 

 

\-------

 

_**He** had asked her to marry him in Paris.  _

 

_He had managed to gather enough money and leave time from SHIELD to buy a plane ticket and take her to the city of her dreams._

 

_From the moment they met, she talked about her plan to visit the city of love, her eyes bright with hope and passion as she spoke to him on their first date in a coffee shop downtown where the city was particularly loud and bustling._

 

_Despite the talk and chaos though, she seemed to feel right at home, inviting the chaos and impatience of the big city into her every being without an ounce of fear or annoyance._

 

_He supposed that was the moment he really fell in love with her- sitting in that loud, cramped coffee shop listening to her talk about her larger than life dreams._

 

_At that moment, even after knowing her for only a few hours, he had wanted to give her the world._

_When he took her to Paris, a whopping two years later, he had taken her to the top of the Eiffel tower in the fall, watching her fall in love with the world all over again from atop of the place of her dreams before getting down on one knee._

 

_Needless to say, she cried for nearly an hour and he was there the entire time to kiss the tears away, promising her a life of happiness and a love that would last forever._

 

Shaking her head in order to rid herself of the memory, she noticed now how dark the living room was as she fixated her gaze on the giant ornamental wedding picture that was perched just above the couch, the only light illuminating the room coming from the reddened dying light of the setting sun in between the closed curtains. 

 

She wondered how long she had been standing there for the world to have become so cold. 

 

Stepping onto the couch carefully, she placed her hands on either side of the beautiful picture frame and pulled it off the wall, neatly placing it in the storage closet beneath the stairs and letting out a breath of air she didn’t quite notice she was holding in. 

 

She stood there for a bit, staring into the now darkened picture of her, clutching onto him and her bouquet of pink peonies as she stared into **_his_ ** eyes, the smile on her face foolish and love struck. 

 

Smiling, she closed the door, turning away and, as she was walking to her bedroom, slipped out of the red dress she had worn that day in the meadow and reminded herself to store it away in the back of her closet before she left in the morning. 

 

\-- 

 

_She had met the soldier in Bucharest._

 

_He was chasing down a man, the one she had heard whispers about, the man that HYDRA had let slip through their greedy grip in their quest to always have more- more than what they deserved, more than what they could handle._

 

_At the time, she didn’t really know who exactly he was._

 

_They had given her fragments of information, a stack of messy papers strewn meticulously across a silver table detailing a man she couldn’t quite shake from her memory- even when they wiped her clear of it, dragging her kicking and screaming through the dirty corridors of her own personal prison until she reached the sterilized chair that she loathed so much._

_She remembered the city of Brooklyn, a picture of a frail young boy, the year of 1918, and the words “hope” and “super-soldier”._

 

_Beyond that, there were only broken pieces of what was left of the person she really was- she supposed then that this was simply what HYDRA was good at._

 

 _They just had a knack for cutting so deep into a person and being able to dig out and discard the flesh and slimy intestines that made them ordinary, made them_ **_human,_ ** _and leaving them hollow enough to be manipulated, controlled easily because, after all,_ **_what did a person with nothing left to feel have to fight for?_ **

 

_\---------_

 

_She first saw him at a coffee shop, strong hands gripping the delicate lines of a white porcelain cup as he drew the intricate architecture of the building before him- every stroke of the pencil calculated, as if even the paper was a battlefield that he had to maneuver._

 

_The truth was that the main reason HYDRA had kept her all this time was not the fact that she was practically a god, a formidable champion for them- but simply because she was pretty and being beautiful no doubt did a number on men, even men like him._

 

_And so she played the part, giggled when he spoke to her and utilized the dark sense of loneliness that he attempted to hide behind a shield and a heroic backstory, watching as he fell so foolishly for a beautiful woman he somehow trusted wholeheartedly._

 

_The conscious part of her that she held onto behind HYDRA’s back had loathed using him, knowing how destructive love could be to someone who was usually so perceptive- and there were times the little slivers of herself would whisper in the night to escape with him and find the man she dreamed of between the white sheets and the sterile chair that would evaporate all of her humanity in an instant._

 

_But when the time came, she knew that she was a soldier solely built to destroy and that love was far too delicate a thing to be attached to- even if she hadn’t been the one to feel it._

 

_And so she watched as he fell off the highest building in Bucharest, believing she would catch him when in reality, she had grabbed the man he had been looking for and disappeared into the night._

 

_\-------_

 

_The next time she had met the soldier, she had been taken in by the US Government with the help of the Avengers, the soldier she had stolen from him being dragged along with her and shipped to a foreign country to be stripped of the damage that HYDRA had brought him._

 

_She only ever remembered fragments since HYDRA had taken her, but she always managed to remember him._

 

_The next time he had looked at her, they were not sitting in a coffee shop in Bucharest laughing about the odd bystanders that seemed to stare at him from afar or laying together in between ugly cotton sheets in a nameless motel under the yellowed fluorescent lighting that she had always complained to him about._

 

_Instead, he was standing in front of her, silent as he placed a hand on the glass that separated him from her._

 

_A part of him blamed himself for being so trusting._

 

_Another part of him was angry._

 

 _But most of him, the_ **_real_ ** _him, the boy who threw himself straight into the front lines of a HYDRA base in 1945 because he deemed it was the right thing to do, the boy who dove into the freezing cold water of the arctic and destroyed any hope for a future for himself because the lives of other people were at stake, simply stared into that clear glass prison and saw that beneath the weapon HYDRA had created was a terrified little bird trapped in a cage too small for its larger than life wings._

 

_Staring down at the envelope in his hands as he finally willed himself to walk off and away from her, he skimmed through the images that branded her a weapon just as it did to his best friend and took note of the words “telekinesis”, “magical ability”, and “demi-god”._

 

_Rounding the corner, he made sure to neatly place the envelope in the trash can outside of Fury’s door before he left._

 

 _After that, the last time he had really seen her, he remembered that she was speaking to him, the same smile that she wore on her face the day they had met gracing her lips, but this time far less empty, less confident in a way that seemed charming and almost even_ **_human._ **

 

_She whispered an apology, placed a kiss on his cheek, and ran off holding the hand of the man she had given her heart to far before he even entered the picture._

 

_The last time he had really seen her, he had simply smiled and let her go._

 

_\--_

 

**Bucharest, Romania**

**Three days later.**

 

She had taken a liking to Steve, which wasn’t really a surprise because who _wouldn’t_ take a liking to him? 

 

He was the leader of the avengers, god’s righteous man, the symbol of hope, of all good in the world- establishing traits that every man should have- even in a world as cruel as the one they lived in. 

 

She had joined Steve after **_he_ **died, discarding the meadow, the safety of her little house, the pink peonies, and the red dress in order to help him out when he went on the run. 

 

Before then, her ledger was dripping with the blood of the people she killed and she had promised Tony that she would stay out of things, turn herself in, obey the Accords in order to live a quiet life with her husband in their picnics and flowers and whispers of love and other foolishness between kisses. 

 

But when **_he_ ** died only a year later, she decided that there was simply nothing left for her to protect. 

 

Her cards were dealt disastrously in front of her and she had made the conscious decision to retreat into the only thing she knew how to do better than be a fool. 

 

She met the blonde haired soldier again in Bucharest, scouting out the old motel with its itchy sheets, damp, water stained walls, and yellow fluorescent lighting and hid in the shadows as she followed him home that night, the pouring rain disguising the sounds of her footsteps. 

 

Weaving behind randomized streets and alleyways so as to hide any semblance of tracks she might leave, she made sure to be thorough, maneuvering the streets of the city she could only barely remember as if it were simply another HYDRA mission. 

 

Though, it seemed rather odd to think of considering her propensity to feel almost everything at that very moment- it had made her almost miss the absence of humanity that she had been forced to live with for years. 

 

Slinking in between two buildings under the silent cover of the night, illuminated only by headlights, flickering shop signs, and busied windows painting pictures of women, men, and children hiding behind a false sense of security, she must have gotten distracted by the sheer volume of her thoughts because, as if she had summoned him herself, the next time she so much as blinked, there he stood, holding her up against the wet alley wall with a knife to her throat. 

 

“This doesn’t seem to be your type of thing, Cap,” she tells him, just loud enough for him to hear over the sound of the pouring rain. 

 

“Who sent you?” he asks in return, deadpan, his face only half visible under the dark and muck that contributed to a rainy night in a city with too much going on it. 

 

“I sent myself,” came her quick retort, the knife slipping out of his large hands and into her nimble fingers almost as if by magic because God knows any normal person would never be capable of that. 

 

It was fortunate for her, though, that she was not normal. 

 

“You know, you were much nicer a year ago.” 

 

He eases up on her at that, standing up straight to a whopping six feet and looking down at her with his arms folded over his large chest. 

 

She catches herself looking at them- his hands especially, gloved so as to protect them from the cold autumn air.

 

 She’s seen the danger they posed, always so enchanted by the idea that something that looked so harmless could ever possess the strength to kill about half a dozen men. 

 

“Well, a year ago I wasn’t on the run,” he jokes halfheartedly, relenting only because he knew what she was capable of- a ticking time bomb created by the devil himself. “Now, I’ll ask again, who sent you?” 

 

He watches her retreat into herself suddenly, discarding the confidence of a soldier that’s seen a thousand wars and looking smaller, exhausted even as she draws in a sharp breath- the dark circles under her eyes prominent even in the pitch black of the alleyway. 

 

“Oh,” he whispers, finally letting the silence answer the question for him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know-” 

 

Shaking her head, she merely smiles, tossing the sharp metal object at him with the knowledge that he would catch it flawlessly, not even stopping to watch as he anxiously plucked it out of the air and into his hands. “It doesn’t matter now, but he’s the reason why I left.” 

 

\-------- 

 

_For as long as she had remembered, **he** had always been the strongest of the two of them- both mentally and emotionally.  _

 

_Even when she had come back from HYDRA’s corruption in a body that was larger than life and a story that was even more disastrous than his, he was always the anchor that kept her stable on the tumultuous seas that represented their tossing and turning life._

 

_And when it all became too much, he would hold her and they would dance with their birds, a sonorous song that whispered across every corridor of their house, an unspoken promise that he would forever and always keep her safe._

 

_But of course, despite all the SHIELD training in the world and his status as one of the best agents in the business, he was still a man simply attached to a woman that was practically immortal, and although they knew that their love would always end up doomed, they paid no mind to it- for in their world, they were immortal and their love everlasting._

 

_She found out he was sick on their third year marriage anniversary, when his smile faded as he blew out his cake and he ran for the bathroom, spitting out blood as black as night into the pristine white of the toilet, droplets of disgusting, sour liquid spilling onto the blue tiles as she watched in horror, knowing that she could save him in any situation except this one._

 

_But of course, the world was unkind, just as it had always been to them._

 

_When he died, only a few days later, she remembered Tony’s hands around her thrashing body, pulling her out of his hospital room as sobs racked her body from the knowledge that her husband was dead and that this time there were simply no resurrections._

 

_Later that night as she made her way into the dark living room, peeking into the giant golden cage perched by the dying light of day she had seen the bodies of her birds at the bottom, the absence of their song so palpable it seemed to replace everything that was ever good in the world._

 

\-------

 

That night Steve walks around the small, cramped motel room, towering over almost everything in the tiny space as if he were the god above that had put them there. 

 

She watches as he moves around, lips slightly downturned and eyebrows furrowed as he talked strategy, his voice soft yet stern. 

 

He looks older now, somewhat, the lines on his face replacing the playful yet reserved smile he would always used to give people as he meandered his way around Avengers HQ with Tony or Thor- always so carefree and happy. 

 

A beard graces his face now, his golden hair longer and messier- the face of someone who truly has lost himself- a man on the run for quite possibly the rest of his life.

 

 The suit he wears is tattered and broken, just like it’s owner- the silver star on his chest absent and replaced by a gaping hole and the sleeves fraying at the edges, rolled up to the top of his forearms so as to preserve what’s left of the fabric that Tony had made for him. 

 

Sam and Natasha nod curtly, lips pursed and faces determined yet eerily beautiful even under the horrendous lighting. 

 

“Are we clear on the plan for tomorrow?” Steve asks, suddenly looking exhausted as he slumped down into a dusty chair at the edge of the room, wincing at the sudden spray of ancient mildew all around him. 

 

He would need a shower after this, and maybe a better motel room. 

 

“Totally got it, Cap,” Nat smiles, flashing him a reassuring smile before she looks over at her, nodding her head in a silent remark of “I’m sorry for your loss” before making her way out of the room, with Sam, the door closing behind them with a tiny thump. 

 

“Get some sleep, and don’t sit there wallowing. You’re not getting any younger,” Sam retorts as he exits the darkened room, leaving the two of them alone with the ugly lights, the itchy sheets, and the silence that was so palpable, it seemed to almost cut through the air whenever the two of them let out a breath of air. 

 

She sits here with him in an uncomfortable silence for what seems like ages and it never really had dawned to her until that very moment that she had actually done what she did- leaving behind every piece of home she’d ever known and running off to a city in a country she could hardly remember just to find him. 

 

She hadn’t really known why it was _him_ she sought out, really. She could have gone to Bruce or Tony, or maybe even shot Thor a raven. But her feet led her exactly where she was now, sitting in a cramped room with a super-soldier she had tried to kill just a year or two prior, the entire situation insane and the environment letting out the acrid smell of ancient mildew. 

 

He’s in front of her now, his eyebrows drawn low on his forehead in a look of worry as he speaks. 

 

She didn’t exactly know when he’d gotten there, nor did she pay attention to the fact that he’d been talking to her for what seemed like quite a while now, but their closeness in proximity was almost deafening in an eerily familiar way. 

 

“Hey, are you with me?” he asks again, strong hands holding onto her forearms in an almost grounding manner, as if he were her anchor, slowly bringing her head back down from the clouds.

 

He used to do that too, she thinks, absentmindedly. The thought appears in her head long before she could stop it from overcoming her senses, and she feels the tugging on her heartstrings, the dull ache that made a permanent home in her chest ever since he left her. 

 

She nods, the blank look on her face skillfully being replaced with that of a smile as she meets his eyes.

 

“I’m with you,” she repeats, her voice coming out as foreign even in her own ears. “Sorry, I must have zoned out, my bad.” 

 

Steve lets out a relieved sigh, flashing her an uneasy smile as he let go of her hands, taking a step backwards to sit down on the bed behind them, looking small despite the utter largeness he had about him purely due to how exhausted he looked in that moment. 

 

“You know, I could always crash in Sam’s room,” he offers, rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he evaded her eyes. 

 

Regardless of the past they had, he was a man with morals and she was a married woman who was mourning the loss of the love of her life. 

 

“Their couches don’t seem _that_ bad,” he adds quickly, finally meeting her eyes in an anxious manner, his hands clammy under the weight of a sort of cold sweat that men like him should never really possess after seeing all the god forsaken things the world had to offer. 

 

“I genuinely fear you’ll contract the plague if you sleep on one of those couches,” she responds, a disgusted look gracing her features. “What are you? Afraid, Rogers?”

 

Sputtering, he shakes his head, a faint blush settling on his pale cheeks. “Me? Afraid? I just.. Wanna know if you’ll be alright, that’s all. I never ever want to make you feel uncomfortable,” he admits, turning his back towards her only to pick from the meager set of clothes he had brought with him in a black duffle bag across a whole ocean. 

 

“You’d never make me uncomfortable,” she assured, shrugging as she sat beside him, catching fragmented glimpses of simple, white t-shirts, jeans, a dreary looking first aid kit, and a series of worn out books that were no doubt a decade old. “You’ve always been perfect.” 

 

He tenses up then, slowly bringing himself to look at her- lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed as if he was in a sort of deep thought process. Letting out a laugh, he gathers the rest of the belongings he had wanted to take with him into the significant darkness of the conjoined bathroom with its chipped walls and yellowing paint, constantly reminding him of the life he had chosen when he had decided to escape with Bucky. 

 

“Not quite,” Steve whispers, more to himself than to her and only faintly remembers flashing a restrained smile in her direction before making his way into the next room. “Not as of late.” 

 

When he returns to the acrid smell of mildew and the flickering of the dying light, he finds her asleep, curled up between the itchy sheets of the ugly motel room, her hair scattered across the no doubt uncomfortable pillow in a hauntingly familiar painting of what used to be the closest thing he could call his in a world that he did not belong in. 


	2. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve Rogers is on the run and along the way, finds out that in reality, he was just running back to her. 
> 
> A series of memories between two people who find solace in shitty motel fluorescent lighting and itchy cotton sheets in a thousand different countries.

**France,**

**July 2017**

 

 **_Steve is a terrible driver,_ ** she deducts one day as they’re on the run from a series of French soldiers that they had failed to notice looking at them for far too long sometime in mid-July when their skin was sticky and the summer sun hung high in the sky, making even the most patient of men antsy in the desire to get away from all the heat and wet of the outside world. 

 

Prior to this exact moment in time, Natasha had never let him remotely close to driving, always racing him to the front of the vehicle and insisting that although he took charge of virtually everything else in their little top gun runaway outlaw dynamic, the automobile would be the one thing she would dominate in, no questions asked. 

 

Back then, she had simply seen it as friendly banter, the kind of teasing that Natasha would always engage in with _her_ boys in the sort of complicated dynamic that she sometimes desperately longed to be a part of. 

 

Granted, from day one they had accepted her without question, taking her under their wing and allowing her a place in their odd little family, but even then she had never failed to pick up on the telepathic link that it seemed  the three of them possessed or the silly inside jokes that would get even the usually stone faced Steve Rogers to crack up at behind the bolted doors of cold warehouses in the Russian winter and the cramped motel rooms hidden in the deepest corners of  Bucharest.

 

However, in the current day, she is suddenly forced to deduct her previous observations as a series faux pas, coming to the painful realization that Natasha had been right all those days in her valiant efforts of racing Steve to the drivers seat as Sam’s laughter echoed behind them in the usual empty parking lots in foreign countries she couldn’t quite remember the names of that they always seemed to end up in. 

 

Steve is a terrible driver, she deducts again as she wills herself to take deep breaths, suddenly alarmingly aware of the fact that her hands were practically turning white under the pressure of her grip on the side handle. 

 

At this point, Steve is dangerously close to triple digits as he pulls up into one of the most congested roads she had ever seen in her life, allowing himself to weave through the series of stalled cars in such a reckless manner that it could bring even an immortal god of extraordinary capabilities to want to grasp at the handles of a brown paper bag no doubt hidden in the glove compartment of the black SUV by none other than Natasha Romanoff so as to not cough up a lung onto the dash of the car they had “borrowed” from a poor bystander off the side of the street. 

 

In the back of her mind, she wishes that she had simply let him drive off alone, leaving her in the safety of Natasha’s responsible hands when it came to driving a firey ball of metal away from a series of soldiers quite possibly given the order to serve their heads on a silver platter, mouths open only to showcase a shining red apple to those that sat on the United States Government. 

 

Steve’s eyes watch the road meticulously, switching every few seconds to check each mirror before briefly glancing back at the reddened lights of what seemed to be nothing short of God’s absolute _reckoning_ coming to reek havoc on all of their asses. 

 

And, despite the fact that he was probably breaking every single law known to man besides already being an international outlaw wanted by almost every country in the world, there was a sense of calm to him that she couldn’t quite point out. 

 

In fact, in the moments where her heart wasn’t being forcefully lodged up into her throat out of the sheer _pressure_ of the earth’s inertia on her body, maneuvering through cramped roads on a speed limit that she didn’t even know was possible on a vehicle that wasn’t capable of growing wings and simply leaving the ground, she liked to watch him as he drove. 

 

The thing about Steve Rogers was that, despite the sense of dumbfounded recklessness he radiated, almost every single aspect of himself and anything he did was already meticulously planned out beforehand. 

 

It may have been his background as a master strategist, but regardless he always seemed to be fifty steps ahead in this sort of gift that he had in seeing multiple realities based on the same situation, and she contributed that fact to the reason why he always seemed to be calm even when driving like an absolute maniac. 

 

“You alright?” he asks her, an hour into their high speed chase when he’s almost eighty percent sure they had lost them with no major casualties besides a few bloodied scrapes on their arms and a series of insane stories that almost no one would belied. 

 

She looks at him then, watching how relaxed he seemed with one arm, battered and bloodied from the earlier fight that had ensued, bent over the rolled down window and the other almost carelessly thrown on the steering wheel as if he wasn’t clutching a 95 in a 50. 

 

“You’re literally insane,” she says, more to herself than him in the sudden realization that they were still alive. 

 

Its around that point where he shoots her a puzzled look, a frown gracing his features as he shrugs. “Well the HYDRA base _was_ one of the tougher ones we came across and I do have to admit that maybe we were somewhat unprepared-” he shrugs, beginning the explanation innocently enough before being cut off by the sound of her disbelieving sputtering. 

 

“Not the mission, Rogers,” is the first thing she says that successfully manages to slow him down just enough for her to breathe. “I meant you’re driving- you’re a literal fucking maniac.” 

 

Pausing for a moment, the expression on his face is blank- his eyes expertly trained on the road and his eyebrows furrowed in a look of either concentration or minor irritation. 

 

It’s around the time when she gathers the courage to apologize to him about the remark wherein he finally lets out a laugh, the arm that was bent over the opened window coming to snake its way around his stomach as the chuckles escaped his lips. 

 

“Maybe so, but if I had let you drive, we would’ve still been three hours away from the border,” he remarks, shooting her this sort of award winning grin he wore only in these little snapshots she would gather in cramped cars and darkened hallways of a stupid boy in Brooklyn running off with his best friend after they were promptly caught by another adult doing who knows what. 

 

And when they make it across the border later that night clad in civilian clothes, carrying their possessions in their small duffle bags as they dumped the car somewhere in the forest where people would be less likely to find it and more likely to believe that they had been eaten alive in the wilderness, a part of her couldn’t stop herself from holding onto the image of him then, arm splayed across his stomach as he laughed even in the worst situation ever, hands bloodied and face bruised in a world that was far too unkind to deserve him. 

 

\-- 

 

**Zerwett, New Zealand**

**December 2018**

 

There are three main things she had learned from being constantly thrust into situations with Steve Rogers for the majority of the two years they had spent on the run. 

 

One, that his mind moved impeccably fast- calculating fifty different strategic attacks and at least three of each of their possible outcomes before the situation even came up as palpable in everyone else’s head.

 

Two, that he drove like an absolute maniac that was incapable of _not_ going at least 50 above the speed limit, which, much to his chagrin and her own fear for her life, actually came in handy when you were being chased by different foreign governments in different foreign countries at least once every other day. 

 

And three, that he was probably the most private man on earth- holding in pieces of himself underneath the safety of the red, white, and blue suit and the child friendly songs of his life seen through rose colored glasses. 

 

To her, it was almost as if he was someone completely different under there, a person so closely watched by the world around him that the real him had retreated deep within himself, hiding from the utter newness of the twenty first century and the reality that everything he had ever known had been ripped away from him because of a power hungry Nazi asshole who accidentally turned his whole face red simply because he couldn’t take no for an answer. 

 

And for a while, she was content with not knowing the man behind the mask, simply accepting that the information he hid behind pretty smiles and a heroic attitude was his to have and to hold and hers to only wonder about in the back of her mind. 

 

    -----------

He gets shot in Siberia, which, in all fairness sounds like a joke because _why on earth would they be in Siberia in the middle of winter?_

 

It was like the equivalent of marching into the jungle and wondering why it was so humid and rainy all of a sudden. 

 

And in all fairness, she only faintly remembers how it had happened, her memory jumbled by the whirring of bullets entering the freezing cold warehouse they had tracked down, cutting the previously still air like knives as the screams of Nat and Sam echoed against the cement walls, silenced only by the clanging of the bullets against the metal of his wings. 

 

And in the back of her mind, she knew that with the magnificent abilities HYDRA had given her, albeit against her will all those years ago, she could have extended the shield she had manifested behind her, covering herself _and_ Steve from the oncoming assault of metal bullets entering the room at all sides- barely visible at the speeds they were going in. 

 

Next, she remembers Steve’s voice cutting through the thin air in a series of instructions that she could only partially process, his hand pushing her in the direction of an exit as he delayed his escape by a few seconds only to make sure that the rest of his team had gotten out safely. 

 

They were massively outnumbered, extremely unprepared, and getting out of the warehouse that their enemies had been shooting silly for the past twenty minutes were the least of their many worries at that moment. 

 

Completely surrounded on all sides, it had been a miracle that they had managed to escape, bloodied bodies staining the white snow a dismal shade of black and their faces white with both shock and exhaustion, chests heaving as they furiously tried to catch their breaths and tattered uniforms soaked in so much crimson red substance that it almost looked as if they were dripping. 

 

“In the Quinjet,” is all Steve says before he saunters up to where they had safely landed, a few miles up into the deep snow of the Siberian mountains and only allowing himself to collapse once the doors had closed behind all four of them and they had deemed that all their troubles were over. 

 

The world was far too unkind for that, though. 

 

The next motel they ended up in was in Zermatt, Switzerland with an altitude so high, it almost felt as if they were still in the clouds by the time the jet had landed. 

 

When she looks back at it now, she admits that it wasn’t really a motel- more like an over expensive tourist trap they had somehow managed to pay for knowing that the excessive amount of people would likely cover their tracks rather than give them away. 

 

As they finally make the hike down to one of the big, open lodges full of tourists and skiers, she’s almost floored by how good Steve is about pretending- smiling at people walking courteously and calmly checking in at the front desk despite the gaping bullet wounds littering the sides of his body, only covered by the thick material of his black puffer jacket. 

 

It was amazing to see how much he could hide from the outside world under a pretty smile and a polite attitude, when the slight shift between steps and the silent winces clearly give it away to the three of them. 

 

Two years on the run with a person can allow for you to know a person pretty well.  

 

When they get to their desired destination, three floors up and high enough to hold surveillance amongst the crowds down below, he practically collapses into the spacious room of the lodge, with its pristine wood walls, spectacular lighting, and the lack of the acrid scent of mildew and sweat they had grown accustomed to, she is the first one to reach him, helping him up onto the large sofa in order to tend to his wounds. 

 

“Don’t die on us, grandpa,” Sam grunts as he helps peel off the dozens of layers his friend seems to have on, only wincing when he sees how much the blood had soaked through the white of his t-shirt. 

 

Steve looks wrecked, to say the least, and his laugh is postponed by a few minutes due to the slowness of his brain. His eyebrows are furrowed and his blue eyes seem distant, fixating themselves up into the bright ceiling lights. 

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he remarks, ignoring the worry on his friends face. 

 

If Bucky were here and not in the safety of Wakanda’s doors, he would have punched him by now for being stupid, wounded or not. But Sam’s a little different- always the good man, he cared more about him not dying than the possibility, though extremely high, of him ever doing it again. 

 

Nat helps her for the most part. 

 

They have this method of communication that requires no real verbal ability, with the only sound between the two of them being the quiet clangs of tweezers, the swoosh of alcohol as it exits the beat up container they kept hidden in their suitcases, and Steve’s labored breathing. 

 

“Bad news, it looks like you’re gonna live, Cap,” Nat says finally, ridding herself of the blue gloves she had on as soon as the worst of it was over. “And to think I actually thought that I could take over the team tomorrow.” 

 

The laugh he lets out is more of a chuckle, light in his chest so as to prevent the pain in his stomach from being too bone crushing. “Maybe next time, Romanoff,” he says, flashing her a smile of gratitude as she stands up to throw away the bullets and bandages that they had either taken out or utilized to stop his pain into a medium sized sterile bag for them to dispose of somewhere more discreet later that night. 

 

Sam gives him a pat on the back, sighing in shameless relief when he sees his friend slowly start to look and act like himself under the sweat and blood littered all over his body. 

 

“Never do that again,” he breathes, shaking his head as he walked out of the room, black beat up duffle bag in hand. “I’m going to bed, you had me fucked up, I’m tired.” 

 

Nat follows after him, her laugh echoing across the large expanse of the hotel room, big enough to make all three claustrophobic superheroes slightly uncomfortable by default. 

 

She didn’t blame them though, life hadn’t been very kind to any of them and after years of crowded, crappy motel rooms, dwindling amounts of money being made, and the fear of being arrested and caught by one of the hundreds of governments always on their ass, it wasn’t really a surprise that the luxury that they had been so used to when they were avengers suddenly made them uncomfortable. 

 

“You should get some rest,” the redhead tells her, placing a hand on her shoulder encouragingly, a soft smile gracing her lips. 

 

She never really thought Nat and her would ever be close in any life, but then again, she had never really thought she’d be on the run across every country in the world with Captain America. 

 

Gathering her thoughts quickly, the girl shrugs and smiles at the familiar, warm aura of her friend. “I’ll just make sure Cap doesn’t slip and die on the way to bed, I’ll be in soon,” she said reassuringly, watching as the former SHIELD agent nodded, winking in her direction before swiftly leaving the room behind Sam, her goodnight muffled by the closing of the door behind her. 

 

“You know I can handle doing basic human things,” Steve says finally when he knows that the other two are out of earshot, his smile soft and exhausted on his pale face- eyebags prominent and a faint, purple color, his longer blonde hair damp and sticking to his sweaty forehead. 

 

She simply shrugs in that stubborn aura she always had about her, signalling him to the fact that she had understood exactly what he was saying, yet was still making the conscious choice to blatantly ignore the remark. “I know, I just wanted to say sorry,” she starts off, her lips pursed as she makes her way to his duffle bag, letting her hand hover over the silver zipper in a silent yet polite quest for permission. 

 

Although Steve was always a man to believe that transparency was key on the battlefield when it came to trust and his team’s overall ability to get through a mission together, there were many aspects of himself he kept hidden under bland, sturdy walls that he had built up over the years living in a century that he accepted he would never quite fit into. 

 

And when it came to that small black duffle bag that symbolized all that he really had left to hold onto in the modern world, she had simply always regarded it as such- always allowing herself to tiptoe around the mystery that acted like a black shroud over what he had hidden in there and accepting the fact that the knowledge was simply not hers to possess. 

 

But when her hands stall against the black fabric, although he hesitates, there is enough trust between them for him to allow her to help him. 

 

He watches her carefully pick out some clean clothes from amongst the neat pile of material laid out in front of her and she takes note of the organized stacks of papers hidden in manila envelopes, the books he kept that reminded him of the home that was Brooklyn in the 30’s when life was simple despite the hacking he sometimes had to do in order to breathe, the loose leaf sketches on stolen restaurant hidden between the pages of his small sketchbook, etc.all the things that made Steve, well, _Steve_ in an almost endearing way. 

 

Remembering the faint image the little knick knacks gave to her of the man behind the carefully thought out instructions and dozens of museum exhibits across the world, she gently closes the vast expanse of the bag and turns to hand him the simple fabrics, meeting his eyes only to smile at him. 

 

“You should take a shower, make sure not to get the bandages wet,” she says kindly, standing up in front of him and holding out a hand in order to help him up. 

 

Steve nods, wincing only slightly as he picks up his bearings. “It wasn’t your fault you know, you did what you could and it’s my job as the leader to protect my team,” is all he says before heading into the brightly lit bathroom, leaving her standing there facing the place where he had laid only seconds before with only the fading memory of the books and carefully hidden sketches keeping her company amidst the muffled noises of the hotel’s shower in the conjoined room beside her. 

 

                      ---------

 

When he leaves the shower, clad in a white t-shirt and sweats about ten minutes later, she swears it’s **_him_** at first glance- his flickering ghost haunting her in the midst of the steam of the shower and the exhaustion that was just beginning to take hold of her now that the sun had successfully disappeared beyond the mountain. 

 

She resists the tugging on her heartstrings that the faint image inherently pulls and rubs the tired from her eyes,  only seeing the spitting image of Steve in front of her- blonde haired and significantly taller with muscles more pronounced as he wipes at his hair with the fluffy expanse of the towel in his hand. 

 

He smiles at her, seemingly okay with her lingering presence in the spacious room, albeit the awkward aura it had inherently brought between them. 

 

They didn’t have many moments in which it was just the two of them and, in truth, she didn’t really know what force, whether it be external or internal, persuaded her to stay- but stay she did nonetheless. 

 

She awkwardly looks around at the bedroom, taking note of its wooden decorations, gold themed picture frames and mirrors, pristine queen sized bed with what looked like soft cotton sheets, and homey looking desk area with its red colored office chair in an effort to avoid direct eye contact with him as he was done getting ready for bed. 

 

Briefly allowing herself the time to steal glances in between her repetitive scanning of the room she had been in for an hour now, she watches him go back and forth between the bathroom and the main room until she’s certain that he’s done by the way he sits in front of her patiently, as if he was waiting for her to just give up and notice him already. 

 

And when she looks up at his slightly flushed, bearded face, cut up slightly from the fleeting events of that disastrous mission, his hair is significantly drier and his face almost… healthier. 

 

Shuffling in her own bag beside her, she holds out a tiny bottle of pills she had stolen from Helen Cho’s lab in avengers tower on the way out of the country two years ago, placing it in his hand gently, a smile tugging at the corners of her cut up lips.

 

She knew of how fast his healing capacity was, considering she had seen it at work herself, but she _had_ been a doctor before she had met her husband and no matter how fast his regenerative ability was, it wasn’t celestial and sometimes required help- especially when it came to controlling the pain that came with a wound as large as Steves. 

 

Thankfully, Helen had cracked the code in super soldier grade Tylenol before she had even thought to do so. 

 

Holding the tiny bottle up, the super soldier examines it for a minute before looking back at her, a playful smile tugging at his lips. “You’re not trying to poison me are you?” he asks, watching her roll her eyes as he popped the required dosage of medication into his mouth, downing it with a glass of water she had left waiting for him on the counter. 

 

“Now you’re making me wish I took advantage of your trust,” is all she says before she allows herself to erupt into a series of giggles with him, briefly watching the way he smiled like all was right in the world before slowly gathering up the courage to get up from the couch. “Anyways, I  was just making sure you took your medicine like a good super soldier. I should get going no-” 

 

“You should stay,” Steve says, cutting her off faster than he would have initially planned. “I mean, if you’d like to! Please don’t think I’m forcing you to stay.” 

 

He’s flustered now, and despite being a superhero and the world’s leading symbol of hope for the past hundred years give or take, he feels like a teenager again- scrawny and in clothes made for someone much bigger than him frantically gathering up the courage to ask Sandra Johnson in the grade above him and Buck to dance in ‘38. 

 

“I’ll stay,” she says after a quiet, painful moment, a smile on her face as she slowly sits back down, this time beside him on the giant expanse of the queen sized bed, small only when compared to the larger than life heroes that were sitting on it. 

 

And in truth, she couldn’t really quite remember how long they sat there in that gigantic hotel room that was far too big for two lost souls on the run as they sat together talking about anything and everything like what they missed about having clean slates and whether Tony was still upset with them or if he understood now why they did what they did. 

 

He told her many things that night- like the fact that his mother was named Sarah Rogers, how Bucky had three sisters he used to babysit all throughout high school, and what he had felt the moment he had made the decision to maneuver the plane into the freezing cold water that day in ‘45- opening up little pieces of him to her out of trust and admiration.

 

She in turn trusted him all the same- telling him about her birds and the day in December in which her husband had died holding her hand on that sterilized hospital bed, his face sunken in and his hair falling out in chunks on the pristine white pillow he was laying on- the doctors only moving to place a stark white sheet over his cold body. 

 

In truth, she didn’t quite know what supernatural force had persuaded the both of them to suddenly let down their walls in front of each other that December night in the cold of the Switzerland alps- maybe it had been the insanely strong super-soldier Tylenol or just the fact that they had almost died that morning, she didn’t really know, but she never complained. 

 

In fact, it was quite nice getting to unwrap the secrets of the man behind the shield whilst also allowing parts of herself to be unveiled to someone other than herself in the process, the entire thing allowing them to feel just a tad bit more human even under their superhuman bodies. 

 

And when she tiptoed into her and Natasha’s shared room deep into the night when she had finally managed to persuade herself and Steve to go to bed after hours of talking, she couldn’t help but smile into the darkness when it came to the fondness she felt in her chest for the ordinary kid from Brooklyn. 

 

It was easy to know the spectacular Captain America, but she knew now that it was much harder to dig deep and solve the mystery that was the ordinary Steve Rogers behind the mask. 

 

And when she thinks about it a little later into the night as she finally slips into bed, recalling the books and sketches he had allowed her to see or the stories he allowed himself to tell her about his childhood in the 20’s, she knows that for a split second, she had been talking to just _Steve_. 

 

\--

 

**Kuching, Malaysia**

**February 2019**

 

They’re following a series of HYDRA affiliates across Europe and into some of the most populated cities in Asia when they’re forced to make a run for it in Kuching- sprinting through the crowded market streets as they maneuvered through overwhelmed crowds of people, pop up stores carrying various types of fruit and fish, and a series of impatient drivers in congested traffic in an effort to get away from the Malaysian government. 

 

Natasha is the first to catch onto the oddly familiar set of suspicious eyes that seemed to appear and disappear around every corner, manifesting itself in different people- whether it be the merchant selling oranges or the truck driver that seemed to drive in a circle, as if he had no clear destination or purpose in his trip other than _them._

 

In response, she walks in a calm, eerily normal pace as she watches the world around her with precision, counting the trips a certain black truck made around the block before she made the call herself. 

 

At around the third circle around, she alerts Steve, the microphones connecting the three of them separated in the congested crowds of people yelling in languages they couldn’t understand manifesting in the hurried orders the soldier was giving- frantic and clearly off the top of his head as he sprinted out of the crowd, effectively drawing all attention towards him rather than his team. 

 

 **_Self sacrificing bastard_ **, is what she remembers thinking before she stops to look around, scanning the streets in a desperate attempt to gauge the exits she could possibly take as the hostiles seemed to approach more and more every second, their closeness in proximity in proportion to where she was stalled in the middle of the crowd making her stomach churn. 

 

Her first instinct is up- the ground being far too crowded and full of possible civilian casualties to remain there in the midst of an inevitable chase, so she waits for a gap in traffic before making the run for an alleyway off the side of the road, leaping onto the fire escape and taking the metal ladder up to the very top of the building. 

 

By that time, Natasha had made her way onto the roof of the building beside her and Steve was long gone, running with dozens of men following him about ten rooftops down, jumping across each building as if it were nothing but a series of puzzle pieces he was connecting together just through sheer force of will. 

 

The blood is rushing to her ears now, hands numb as the scorching heat of Kuching even in February made a home in her stiffened bones. 

 

Closing her eyes briefly, she can faintly hear the footsteps of Malaysia’s own personal rendition of a SWAT team behind her as they meandered their way up the building through both the stairs and the fire escape, their words only vaguely coherent in her ears as something along the lines of “get her!” repeated like a mantra about fifty times. 

 

She takes a look down at the steep plummet awaiting her below as if to remind her _not_ to fall before allowing herself to take a deep breath, feeling the pressure of the humid air enter her lungs as she took her running start and jumped, the only thing registering in her ears being the **whoosh** of air as she cut through it with her body and the opening of the door leading up to the roof behind her. 

 

She’s reminded of the fact that she was practically a god when, only half coherent under the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins, she lands perfectly on the next roof, her feet placed under her securely as the people below marveled at the sight of a person flinging themselves from roof to roof in a furious attempt to maybe not get arrested by the Malaysian government. 

 

She picks up speed then, the redheaded ex-assassin turned SHIELD agent beside her as she jumps from building to building with the intent to meet up with the familiar face of Steve Rogers, who was currently attempting to get away from a series of foreign soldiers, carefully maneuvering his way around them without causing any serious injury. 

 

He may have been branded a criminal for three years but he was never the type of person to seriously hurt someone for simply doing their job- he was far too understanding for that. 

 

On the way to him, she catches herself watching him as he fights, little glances as she slides across rooftops, fighting off soldiers of her own in an attempt to get to him. 

 

His fighting style has changed in the past three years- the force of it a little more wild, a little less refined- the style of a man who was constantly at war with himself, a man that was every bit of a hero masquerading as a villain. 

 

And to her it was almost beautiful in a twisted way, to say the least- as if the careful movements of his punches and kicks, the red of his bloodied knuckles and the tiny, gradual fading scars on his face painted a picture of the mental turmoil he had been in for the past three years of his already extremely long life. 

 

She could watch him forever, doing what he does best in a flurry of admiration and awe that tugged on the heartstrings she had that she swore were long gone by now. 

 

But it’s the glint of a knife, aimed far too low for him to be able to see that catches her attention, the feeling of dread coursing throughout her body, something she had yet to feel again since that day with **_him_ **where she watched helplessly as he coughed up black, the substance all over the tile of their bathroom and all over her hands when she tried to help, the sound of an ambulance faintly screeching in the background as she held his limp body in her hands that eerily cold July night. 

 

When she gets there, she doesn’t remember the violent crack of the soldier’s wrist as she pulls the metal object from his grasp or the force of his body hit the ground, unconscious but only sustaining minor injuries. She doesn’t remember five of the men she had to kick to the ground in order to get to him or the screams behind her that sounded awfully akin to Natasha’s voice. 

 

In fact, she only remembers him and the sight of his pale face, his blue eyes as wide as dinner plates as she reached out to hug him, her heart in her throat as she attempted to speak, the voice that came out of her lips unrecognizable to even her. 

 

“Be more careful next time please,” is all she says before he returns the hug, albeit unsurely, his strong arms encompassing her in the uncomfortable feeling of _home_ that had been lost to her since **_he_ **had left her all those years before. 

 

“I will,” he responds quietly, shaky hand reaching up to smooth down the hair on her head as he held onto her for just a bit longer, the faint, irritated screams of the soldiers still tasked to take them in sounding as if they were miles away. “I will.” 

 

                  ------------

 

**Sebuyau, Malaysia**

**36.5 km from Kuching**

**That following night.**

 

They end up in Sebuyau, a small coastal town in the Sarawak province of Malaysia where the roads were tiny and the inhabitants paraded around in tiny boats to catch fish and sang songs in Malay of the stories passed on from generation to generation. 

 

They choose a motel on the outskirts of town ran by a kind family that didn’t quite mind the language barrier between them and the inside is more of what they were already used to- yellowed lights, the acrid smell of mildew, and cheap, itchy cotton sheets. But despite that, it was home in an odd way so they never complained. 

 

Natasha calls Sam as soon as they lock the doors to their room and it’s her who decides that a makeover for the three of them would be the best course of action. 

 

Today had been a game of luck- the world would be on high alert looking for them now which was the last thing they could have hoped for. 

 

And besides that, the job they had made of the soldiers, although leaving all of them with only superficial injuries at the very most, was messy and their tracks needed to be hidden. 

 

Sam suggests that it’s time to come home and they agree after Bucky gets on the phone with him, his voice worried yet also impeccably _real_ and _reasonable_ in a manner that was so incredibly _Bucky,_ the _old_ Bucky that it made even Steve, who had been dead silent across the room crack a smile. 

 

At around 8pm, they make the executive decision to leave the safety of the motel room, making a joint trip to the nearest marketplace via stolen car and buying as much bleach and black dye their wallets could afford.

 

The lights are flickering ominously above their heads and the three of them combined were only able to speak in fragments of the native language to the nice woman at the register, but they manage to escape with everything they needed just fine. 

 

They dye Steve’s hair a dark brown in the bathroom, his head bent over the sink in what looked like the most uncomfortable position in the world but he still talks to the two of them like what they’re doing is normal, as if their world wasn’t in the process of falling apart at the seams. 

 

And when they’re done, she takes a look at him and resists the urge to reach out and hold something that wasn’t even hers, faintly taking note of how he looks almost unrecognizable without the blonde and the smile that he always seemed to wear as the spectacular Captain America. 

 

The change was _scary,_ to say the least, but it was exactly what they needed at the moment. 

 

They walk out with him about an hour later looking like a completely new man and drive back to the hotel in a pitiful silence, the woman at the register only smiling at them politely as they left. 

 

This was the life they had chosen, or rather the life that chose them, and it was as if every day, they were being tested on how much regret any of them could muster when it came to their choice. 

 

They try not to think about it, but it’s there nonetheless. 

 

As soon as they arrive back at the motel, Steve decides that it’s time for him to turn in for the night and he shoots them a smile before quietly splitting apart from them and slipping into his own room, the door clicked shut behind him silently, muffled only by the sound of their own door shutting. 

 

It’s quiet between them when Natasha and her dye each others hair, the only noise between them being the television in the middle of the room showcasing their faces on the screen in a language they couldn’t understand. 

 

She ignores the pictures and the remarks and instead watches as the blonde strips away at all the natural red in her friend’s hair, carefully cutting it to around the length of her chin after it had dried enough. 

 

The change is palpable between them and they look like different people, but Natasha still smiles at her in that warm way she always has and sits her down in the shitty desk chair by the tv so she could braid her hair. 

 

“So why’d you do it?” she asks quietly, her voice rhythmic, like the sound of church bells as she expertly tugs the hair in her hands into place. 

 

The question itself is sudden and confusing, catching the girl in the dusty chair in front of her visibly off guard. “Why did I do what?” she questions, eyebrows drawn low on her forehead in a look of confusion. 

 

Natasha shrugs, continuing with her braiding in a casual manner. “Why did you come here with us? You had a good life, it was peaceful and kind. Not to mention, Tony still liked you,” the last phrase comes out a bit more pointed and she finds herself tugging a bit too hard as they’re escaping her mouth but nonetheless, she’s curious not because she loved her any less (she was like a sister to her), but because she wondered why she would give away a perfectly good life in exchange for this one. “You were happy, weren’t you? Why’d you trade it away?” 

 

She watches the girl in front of her think for a bit, letting  the question hang in thin air above her head before pursing her lips and speaking again. “I guess after he died, I realized that maybe it was time I start pretending to be someone I wasn’t,” she explains, her eyes blank in the mirror in front of them as they stared down at her neatly folded hands resting on her lap. 

 

And as she’s finishing off the braid with the quick tie of a ponytail around the very end, Natasha nods in some semblance of understanding. She of all people knew what it was like to lose things, and in the process lose parts of herself. 

 

“Who is the real you then?” the now blonde haired woman asked after a few brief moments of silence, more to herself than the girl who assumed the question was for her. 

 

“Well,” she says, finally looking at herself and her friend in the mirror. “I guess I’m first and foremost someone who understands what Steve was willing to risk when he ran off to protect Bucky from a world he knew wouldn’t be able to figure it out, and I guess, other than that, I understand what Bucky felt in all of that too. I of all people know what it’s like to be forced to do things you never wanted to do, to have parts of yourself torn apart and stitched back together as memories and information that wasn’t really _yours.”_

 

She lets the words pause on her tongue, taking them in as Natasha sits on the stained couch beside her, the woman’s presence comforting and kind even in the midst of her intrusive thoughts. _“_ I guess at the very crux of it all I just saw that you guys needed help and I thought that if I couldn’t do anything to save him, I could at least help you out,” she finishes, the taste of the words on her lips bittersweet and foreign in a sense of unfamiliarity she would have never welcomed in her tired body three years ago. 

 

“Is that where Steve comes in?” the former Russian assassin asks as she reaches a small hand out to take hers in a sort of solidarity that almost broke her right then and there. “I see how much you care about each other and trust me, it’s the most refreshing thing I’ve seen out here. Hold onto it.” 

 

Her words, so kind and innocent in a situation that was tattered on all sides and soaked in crimson red, were akin to the arrow shot that broke the dam, the tears slipping out of her eyes silently as sobs racked her lungs from the inside out. 

 

Natasha responds silently with a secure hug, her pale hand in her hair as she held her shaking body, listening to the words that came pouring out of her mouth thoughtfully. 

 

“It feels wrong,” she says, the hiccups making the words turn into incoherent fragments of sound. “Like I'm betraying him by falling in love with someone else. I feel disgusting and oh _god_ I'm probably being so _pathetic-”_

 

The words come out cruel, a form of self hatred that almost every human was familiar with but the blonde haired woman only coos encouraging words to combat them, the two of them acting as each other’s only sense of stability in a world that was far too unkind to deserve them both. 

 

And when the time is right and her eyes are dry, the hiccups gradually disappearing in a way that allows her the ability to breathe again, Natasha cups her face in a grasp akin to that of a mother- gentle and forgiving. “Healing is _not_ betrayal and your feelings are valid. We were told our whole lives that love made us weak but we never stopped to think of how strong it would be a force to help us heal. Steve helps you heal, you should _never_ be ashamed of that,” she explains, her voice quiet in the tiny room yet stern and determined to help the girl in her arms understand. 

 

There is a quiet between them, a silent standoff you imagine in old western film separating them for what feels like an eternity before she smiles, reaching out to pull her into a hug. 

 

Natasha sighs in a sense of relief that shakes her soul, closing her eyes and savoring the feeling of the family she had pieced together in Steve, Sam, Tony, Bucky, and even _her,_ thinking that maybe the world wasn’t as terrible as she had initially thought if it had given her such amazing people to love. 

 

\-- 

 

**Wakanda, Africa**

**March 2019**

 

They land mid-day, the doors of the vehicle opening to the heat and bright light of Wakanda, blurred in their exhausted eyes as they’re greeted by what seems to be an army of people, as always, smiles painted on their faces as they welcome the three of them home. 

 

Bucky almost walks right past Steve when they land in Wakanda, heading straight into the quinjet yelling out his best friends name and complaining about how late he was before realizing that he had just seen him on the way there, completely unaware that the man with the beard and differing hair color was _Steve Rogers._  

 

Needless to say, Bucky is _not_ a fan of the hair change and makes fun of him intensely when he finally pulls his fellow super-soldier into a bone crushing hug, the two of them letting out a sigh of relief at each other’s presence. 

 

“How are you doin’ Buck?” Steve asks, the smile on his lips gigantic and warm in a sort of childish glee that made Bucky remember faint laughs as they meandered down the dirt path of the fair they ran off to in the spring of ‘38 and Steve’s squeals of disbelief when he had used the last of their combined train money to buy a stuffed animal for a girl named Dot. 

 

Shaking off the distant memory, the brunette only laughs at the question, which seems so odd to ask now that their lives were anything but ordinary. “Pretty good for what it’s worth,” he responds, giving him a once over before laughing again. “As for you though, when was the last time you took a shower? You reek worse than half the trash cans here combined.”

 

Steve bursts into this sort of deep laughter she’s never quite heard before as he throws a playful punch at his best friend, wrapping an arm around him as they both laughed together on the helipad- Natasha and Sam joining in briefly with a quick roll of their eyes, smiles tugging on the corners of their lips. 

 

She watches their interaction from afar, smiling at the notion that the fleeting moments they spent here, in the bustling streets of Wakanda with the whirring of the world’s most advanced technology surrounding them at all angles, were some of the few times she had ever really seen her friends laugh so much. 

 

And the thought brings a certain warmth to her core despite the already blazing heat of Africa. making this place seem all the more like the closest thing to home she’s ever known in the past three years. 

 

        ----------

 

Natasha decides to stay with Sam when he inadvertently causes a mario kart battle to erupt between him and Shuri later that night when they visit her in her lab. 

 

The visit in itself was originally meant to be brief and strictly under the pretense of looking at some of the new tech Shuri had decided to make for the four of them when they went out on missions (despite Steve being clear in not wanting the teenager to fuss over them), but this immediately changes when Sam arrogantly claims that he was the reigning king of mario kart and Shuri, in her fury, screaming something about him being old man that had yet to see strategy to the likes of her prowess. 

 

Pretty soon, the room is filled with screams and the artificial sounds of in game effects as the two of them fuss over virtual car racing, Natasha watching them with a sort of childish glee as she eats her popcorn on one of the chairs she had pulled up to the tv. 

 

Steve approaches her then, standing beside her as she watched the chaos continue in front of them in a fit of screaming, flames, and gunshots heard in the distance. 

 

“So I guess we’re gonna be the only two to take up that visit to Bucky’s hut huh?” he asks, a smile prettily placed on his features as he watched his friends, careless and having fun in such a fleeting moment in their otherwise bland lives. 

 

Nodding, she tears herself away from the image, shaking it from her mind before looking up at him- taking in the longer length of his dark brown hair and the thick beard that made a home on his face, the two aspects combined making him look older, more worn down- like he’s seen far too much from the world, which, in truth, was the case. 

 

“I guess that’s the case, let’s go soldier,” she says, stepping forward to say goodbye to their friends before making her way to the door, her honeyed voice familiar and warm- reminding him of the girls in the 40’s holding onto their uniformed boyfriends the day before they were shipped out to Britain to fight on the front lines, the noise sending him into this dreamlike state of a reality that, back then, he would only get to watch from the sidelines. 

 

_“Why’re you so keen to fight? There’s so many important jobs!” Bucky asks him, clad in that familiar military grade brown uniform he wore the day before he got shipped out in June of 1943, his mind painting an eerily real picture of that brightly lit room at the very corner of the Stark Expo, the realistic weight of the pen and already filled out enlistment paper in his hands- suddenly so much smaller than what he was used to._

 

_“What do you want me to do? Collect scrap metal in my little red wagon?” he hears his own  voice, angry and impatient as he stares down the man in front of him, the differences between him and the Bucky he knew now palpable in how young he looked, the way he squared his shoulders up confidently, and held himself far more assuredly than he would ever hold himself in the modern world- a perfectly painted picture of the man before the war, the man that still saw such good things in the world._

 

_“Well, yes! Why not?” Bucky asks him, growing more impatient as time went on._

 

_He would never understand what enlisting would mean to the frail little boy in front of him, what finally feeling a semblance of usefulness would do to ease his conscience, already so guilt ridden over a body that wasn’t enough and_

 

_“I’m not gonna sit around in a factory Bucky!”_

 

_“Well you can-”_

 

 _“_ **_Bucky!”_ ** _The words come out sharper than he initially intends, and suddenly he’s a lot more tired than he was five seconds ago._

 

_Stupid body, he remembers thinking bitterly as he feels his hands shake, his palms suddenly sweaty as he chases down the breath that was just punched out of him- the feeling eerily familiar to when Dennis Edwards kicked him behind a dumpster outside of the movie theater earlier that morning for telling him to shut up at the daily showing of ‘toons._

 

 _“_ **_C’mon,_ ** _there are men laying down their lives, I’ve got no right to do any less than them,” he explains, calmer now- his voice less scratchy now that there was enough airflow to his lungs. “That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me.”_

 

 _Bucky lets out a sigh of disbelief, shaking his head in silent defeat as he stares at the most_ **_stupid_ ** _and_ **_stubborn_ ** _boy in Brooklyn- no- the United States, letting out a silent prayer to any God above for his the safety of his incompetent little ass._

 

_“Right,” he breathes out, the words pointed and harsh in an obvious undertone of disappointment. “Cause you got nothin’ to prove.”_

 

 _The words hung between them for a moment, like a knife on a string dangling over their heads in a dangerous dance of Russian roulette. And for a moment, he takes in the image of Steven Grant Rogers, his best guy, his partner in crime, his whole life for what felt like an eternity and he studies his tiny face on his skinny shoulders, remembering the days he would feel sick to his stomach knowing that_ **_he_ ** _was in bed coughing his lungs out, unable to breathe in the weak little body he had called home for the past 21 years of his life._

 

_“Hey Sarge! Are we going dancing?” a faint voice calls from a ways away, impatient for the attention of the newly made Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th infantry._

 

_Turning, as if he had expected that in the back of his head, Bucky gives out an award winning smile, throwing his hands in the air smoothly in an effort to emphasize his words. “Yes we are,” he says, effectively appeasing them as they erupt into the sweet sound of honeyed giggles, their amusement buying him some more time with Steve, the moments ever fleeting between the two of them._

 

_“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,” is all he says as he backs up and away from him, watching his figure get ever smaller as he walked away from what had been dumb double dates with girls in diners, patching each other up after alleyway fights, and stupid decisions made to impress girls that would’ve cost them the money they needed to catch a ride back to Brooklyn._

 

_“How can I? You’re taking the stupid with you” Steve murmurs, pen and enlistment paper in one hand as the other waves a bittersweet goodbye to the person he knew better than he knew himself._

 

_Bucky shakes his head then, a hopeless smile tugging on his lips as he walks back over to him, pulling him into a bone crushing hug- taking in his unusually cold skin and the way his breath came out scratchy and uncontrolled, engraving the feeling of him into the back of his body and holding him there- a piece of home to take with him on the road to a faraway land he could only imagine._

 

_They stand there in a tight embrace for a bit, holding the parts of each other they were doomed to lose before finally letting go, smiles gracing their young and unafraid faces as they looked at each other for what would be the last time in a long while._

 

_“Don’t win the war until I get there,” Steve says as he watches Bucky Barnes walk away, two beautiful girls in picture perfect dresses holding on adoringly to each of his arms as he stays in the yellowed light of the enlisting office, utterly out of place in a world that he was simply never strong enough to belong in._

 

_“Let’s go soldier,” the voice of a woman echoes through the room, catching his attention enough for him to look over at the picture of a strong man in military garb with a honeyed voiced woman holding onto his arm, looking at him like he had hung the stars in the sky._

 

“Rogers?” her voice echoes in the back of his mind, pulling him into the heat of Africa and the thrum of vibranium metal around them singing out like an ancient song as they stood in the present, his body taller and much more defined, the pain in his lungs long gone, as if they had been the last manifestations of a distant bad dream. 

 

“Yeah?” he asks, blinking hard and fast in a desperate attempt to ground himself in the reality that was right in front of him in the modern world rather than the imaginary one he lived in set in the 1940’s.

 

She looks at him then, the same smile on her face as the girl in the enlistment center at the stark expo, looking at him as if he was Icarus with his candle wax sings flying across the baby blue skies. “We don’t got all day, captain,” she remarks, holding an arm out towards the large exitway of Shuri’s lab, their friends yelling out goodbyes and “meet you there’s” as they leave the adrenaline and video game filled rage of the room. 

 

    -----------

 

The streets of Wakanda are bustling that night, filled with the constant thrum of the peoples of different tribes, all so unique in their own way with their colorful traditions and languages, yet united under the sure leadership of their king. 

 

Down the streets, the children run rampant, playing games of tag and hide and seek as their amused parents follow along, a constant chiding figure behind them that was always there to remind them not to run off too far. 

 

Bucky’s hut is on the far side of the inner countryside, a tiny house amongst many tucked deep into plush green forests and the fireflies that roamed the darkening world, always managing to lead them home, regardless of how long they’ve been away. 

 

On the long trek there, they pass the time with talk- standing close enough in proximity to each other that she could feel his unnatural warmth- kind and inviting in the way that made her want to seal the awkward yet comfortable gap between them, her hand itching to hold onto his as if this was some childish movie and she was a lovestruck child. 

 

He opens up to her a little more during these fleeting moments, recounting memories with the Howling Commandos on those nights they had to camp out in the winter, huddled around a fire as they sang songs, got drunk, and talked about the things they missed about the normality of the world. He tells her of the pies his mom used to make him when he was in high school, running home on an empty stomach with Bucky on his heels, just as ravenous as he was to get a taste of  the cinnamon and apple flavors that he had been bragging about all morning. 

 

He paints a picture for her on these walks of a tiny little apartment on the poorer side of town with a loving mother who was always the first nurse to show up at the ward when there was talk about newly sick patients and an absentee father who had been shipped off to the 107th only to suffer a fate they knew had been possible in the back of their minds. 

 

And she, in turn, does what she can do- listen, only able to imagine the world he was born into as he talks with such passion, his shoulders less squared and tense when he was around her- reminding her of the carefree little boy he would tell her in his stories, so much different from the spectacular Star Spangled Man she had known all these years. 

 

They arrive at the end of the dirt trail leading all the way up to Bucky’s hut by the time he’s wrapped up on his story and almost as soon as he stops talking he’s on the ground, ambushed by the children that made a home by the water and adored him just as they adored the brown haired veteran they had come to visit. 

 

Steve lets out a laugh coming from deep within him, shaking the children that lay on top of him to greet him in their odd little way, pulling at the newly welcomed darkness of his beard. 

 

They scream for him to tell them a story and he gets up only to attempt to say no as he had a very special friend to visit, but they pull him back into the game with their tiny pleas of desperation, watching happily as he begins another story derived from the real truths of his often tumultuous life. 

 

She watches him interact with them from the sidelines, a goofy smile on her lips as she remembers the now foreign want she used to possess when it came to having children. 

 

Back then, all she knew of was the sterile halls of a hospital in New York, the sweetness of the flowers in her meadow, and her little talks with **_him_ **of baby names and crib colors in their living room, lovebirds resting on their shoulders singing a sonorous song of the hope that spring brought back when the world to her was only ever kind and patient. 

 

“You know staring’s rude, right?” Bucky’s voice echoes from behind her, the sound of it sudden enough to catch her off guard. “‘S kinda creepy, if you ask me.” 

 

“Says the person who literally creeped out from behind the shadows just to deliver this information to me,” she retorts back, watching the chuckle in response shake his large body in a sense of foreign amusement that was no doubt something he had to force himself to get used to after 70 years of HYDRA emptiness. 

 

He points to the hut behind them, meek and humble, it’s singular door covered only by the brightness of the orange and royal blue printed tapestry that hung there, the utter smallness of it omitting a simple sense of _home._ “You wanna come inside? He’s gonna be out here for a while, you know how the kids are,” he says innocently enough, a kind smile that screamed _Bucky,_ the _real_ Bucky gracing his features as he begins turning on his heel. “C’mon, I got tea brewing somewhere in there.” 

 

Bucky’s hut is significantly more decorated than it had been when she last visited, she remembers thinking as she steps inside.

 

 The walls are littered with Natasha’s postcards purchased especially for him from every single country they visit, Steve’s drawings of various things like the people they meet and the architecture they meander past, restaurant and motel receipts that Sam saves from around the world that always seem to feature a note or doodle, as well as various pictures of the five of them doing god knows what, always with a smile on their faces. 

 

The sight tugs on heartstrings and she fights against the lump in her throat- a side effect of the emotions that she often times forgets she still has. 

 

Besides that, she notices the addition of a makeshift living area, a tiny wooden couch with colorful pillows littered on top of it visible in the faint light of the candles spread across random parts of the room. 

He’s even installed a tiny little sink for both washing dishes and getting ready in the morning, little wooden racks holding cups, plates, and utensils hanging beside the open window above the system. 

 

The place oddly reminds her of a studio apartment back at home in New York with it’s tiny wooden table obviously made by the man in front of her, colorful cushions placed around it in what looked like a tiny dining table for when they came by for these fleeting moments, his bed, a little colorful cushioned thing obviously worn out by the passage of time sitting above a little mat of reeds a few inches away from the dining room, living room, and “kitchen” a spitting image of a _home_ of some sort- no matter how tiny. 

 

“Make yourself at home,” Bucky says with a smile as they breach the front “door”, heading to the larger table by the dining room/bedroom/kitchen where a tiny metal tea kettle sat, hissing away as it signaled to the world that it was high time for a refreshing cup. “Do you want tea? I know you and Steve like jasmine, so I made some.” 

 

She nods at the offer and continues to look around, taking in the heat that he was no doubt used to by now and the sound of families singing by the fire as their children ran around outside, happy and unbothered by the woes of the unrelenting world they lived in. 

 

“You’ve changed the place,” she says quietly, finally breaking the silence as Bucky pours the tea into three separate cups. “It’s got a bit more personality since the last time we showed up.” 

 

He chuckles at that and nods, taking a moment to look at the clutter of his little hut, a place that used to be so empty other than the bare necessities it took to have a home when he had first moved in- horrified and out of place in a world that didn’t want him.

 

 “Well,” he starts, making his way over to one of the wooden couches he had made a few months ago as the first round of things to eb the boredom and anxiety away and sitting down, tea cups in his only hand as he encourages her to sit beside him. “I got some goats, decided it was time to make this place look more like a home.” 

 

“Goats,” she repeats, sitting beside him and taking one of the tiny cups into her hands, smiling at the warmth of the tea inside. “Almost forgot you adopted like what? Seven? Look at you being a goat dad.” 

 

Bucky takes a sip of his tea, letting out a breath as he thinks for a bit. “Eight,” he finally says. “The last one came to me about a month ago, made a whole collar and leash for him outta some rope just looking for his owner. When I found him, he just said it was probably best I keep him. Claimed I looked like I loved him too much, which was pretty true. I ended up naming him Darcy, he’s sleeping outside with the others.”

 

“Like _Fitzwilliam_ Darcy? From Pride and Prejudice? Never took you as a reader, Barnes.” 

 

“Well, you gotta pass the time when your livelihood is goat farming. Besides, you left it here last time, didn’t want it to collect dust.” 

 

They both laugh at that remark, letting it fizzle out between them into a sweet silence as they drank their tea and listened to the distant sound of Steve’s voice, mumbling a very child friendly version of his raid on the last HYDRA base back in the winter of ‘45. 

 

Bucky is the first to talk, reclined on the wooden backing of the sofa with the tea in his only hand, looking up at the ceiling of his tiny little hut as he spoke. “You know I see the way you look at him- Stevie, I mean,” he hums, a shit eating grin painted across his features. “I think it’s kinda cute.” 

 

“What- me? Steve? Shut up!” she hisses in response, holding the tea cup high enough to cover her face as her friend bursts into an uproar of uncontrolled laughter. “Is it that obvious? _God_ stop laughing Buck, I swear to God I _hate_ you.” 

 

The brunette shakes his head, placing his now empty tea cup down at the base of their feet so as to not let go of it and cause it’s untimely breakage in the midst of his laughter. “You’re fine, Steve’s the most oblivious person in the world. Didn’t even know Peggy had a crush on him at first. Only got the gist when she finally kissed his punk ass,” he explains, his words slower than usual, flowing like bitter molasses as he remembers the dumb smile his best friend wore whenever he caught a glimpse of that stunning SSR agent. 

 

“He kinda looks at you like that, y’know,” he adds, wiggling his eyebrows at her playfully. “Haven’t seen him that interested in a woman since- well- _ever_ really. Never was one to chase after a dame.” 

 

“God you sound like my grandpa, Buck,” she whines in response before turning her body slightly to look at him square in the face, her eyebrows raised in questioning. “What’s your point, pops?” 

 

The sudden shift into silence is deafening and his previously amused face is suddenly sullen in the dull candlelight of the room. “Just.. take care of him, y’know?” he lets out along with a big puff of air, as if he had been holding it in all this time without even knowing it. “He’s the biggest punk I know and he deserves to finally be happy.” 

 

Nodding, she places a hand on his shoulder in a silent remark of _I’m here and I’ll do whatever it takes_ as she sighs, the smile on her lips bittersweet like the taste of dandelion greens in the spring _._ “What about you, Buck? You deserve that too, y’know,” her voice is candied sweet, the sound of a dream set in the 30’s of a world that was far less violent and unforgiving, the force of it shaking his core enough that it takes him a while to break out of it’s trance in order to face reality again. 

 

“I’ve got my happiness, I guess. I’ve got you guys- the closest thing to family I’ve seen in the 21st century, and I guess that’s what I’ve been looking for in the back of my head all this time.” 

 

\---------

 

Steve comes in, covered in sweat, his hair a mess, and the smile huge on his pale face about an hour later, finding Bucky washing dishes and humming a simple tune under his breath as the girl he had come to the hut with slept on his bed a few feet away, curled up in the sort of innocent slumber that had the power to erase almost all the bad she had seen in the world and replace it with something hopeful. 

 

He opens his mouth to speak on the situation before Bucky holds his hand out impatiently, turning to shoot him a glare over his shoulder. “She’s asleep, don’t go makin’ a shit ton of noise, Steve,” he says sternly, the volume of his voice almost inaudible over the rush of river water and the tedious song of the crickets that resided outside.

 

“I’ve got eyes, Buck,” Steve frowns, shooting his best friend a smile as he walks over to him, grabbing one of the washcloths in order to help dry out the plates and cups he had stacked on the table beside the sink- wiping at the porcelain as he hummed a random tune from the depths of his mind, recognizable only as Audrey Hepburn’s soulful rendition of _Moon River._

 

They sit there like that for a moment, working as a two man dishwashing team as they enjoy the sweet silence between them and the comfort of each other’s presence- the only stable thing in their lives since they had both gotten out of ice. 

 

And in the back of his mind, Steve wonders just how long it’ll take for his world to be just like _this_ again- some semblance of normality as he just washes dishes in a quiet little apartment on the far side of DC, the record player playing something from the 40’s as he waits for Tony, Nat, and now even Bucky to come over, always knocking to simply just check on whether he was still living. 

 

Protecting his friends was what he lived for, but he always was a lone wolf- thinking he could take on the world better alone purely because he never really wanted to ask for much when it came to the people around him. 

 

And he enjoyed those moments of silence and solitude between the ones he’d spend laughing with the friends he had made, opting to keep them as a permanent part of his life until, well, until he had met her- the woman sleeping soundly just a few feet from him, always willing to just sit in silence with him in a sense of quiet understanding that, so far, he had only really seen Bucky wield with such patience. 

 

“You ever miss the 40’s?” Bucky’s voice cuts through the air suddenly, warm and inviting as he shuts the sink off, leaning against it now, his one arm folded over his big chest, the absence of the metal one palpable over the awkwardness of the picture in front of him. 

 

The sound of his voice makes Steve plummet back into reality and he finally notices now that he had been looking at the girl he had been thinking of the entire time. Straightening himself, he clears his throat and places the cup he had been drying on the rack directly in front of him, slowly allowing his composure to return to him as he thought for a moment. 

 

“Do you even remember the 40’s?” comes his playful retort, a grin making a home on his smug face as his best friend rolls his eyes. 

 

“Bits and pieces,” he responds, shrugging. “Mostly remember that the food was utter shit. How did we live back then? Seeing a boiler now makes me wanna vomit.” 

 

The blonde scoffs, the chuckle deep in his chest shaking his entire body amusedly. “Beats me, bud. I remember the time when we were twenty- we had to live on canned meat for a whole _year_ before inflation went down enough for us to get something else. I almost _wished_ Tuberculosis had gotten to me that summer,” he recalls, head tilted up to the ceiling and eyes squinted in a sore attempt to visualize their over excited selves running to the market that morning around 70 years ago, their bodies drastically different from the ones they possessed now- smaller, more _human._

 

Bucky’s laughter is a little bit harder to contain at that one and he brings his hand up to his mouth to silence himself so as to not wake up the other person in the room. “You know what I also remember?” he waits for Steve’s little _hm?_ In response before continuing. “That girl named- what’s her name? Barbara was it?” 

 

“You called her Barb, said she was the one for you one time when you had way too many drinks- swore you’d marry her by sunrise,” the other man finished for him, the grin already on his face growing wider not at the fond memories he was experiencing, but at the notion that Bucky’s memories were _his_ and _real,_ not some figment of HYDRA’s doing, but the innocent little meanderings of a stupid boy from Brooklyn and his tiny best friend. 

 

“Y’know we missed the bus for that girl,” he remarks.   


“Why’s that such a bad thing? I swore I was gonna marry her, Steve.” 

 

“Because it was the last bus to Brooklyn, you jerk.” 

 

He playfully punches his arm then, the two of them laughing carelessly in the middle of Bucky’s kitchen like wide eyed children- unaware of their futures as Captain America and The Winter Soldier as they mutually let the moment fizzle out into another intermission of comfortable silence between them.

 

“When do ya leave again?” Bucky asks, looking out of the window casually so as to hide the disappointment that bubbled in his chest, always seeming to be there when the four of them left to save the world yet again. 

 

The gesture breaks Steve’s heart and he fights the urge to pull him into a bone crushing hug like he used to, instead letting his arms hang at his side unsurely. “Three days time, figured it’d be enough relaxation time before we go out fighting HYDRA scum again,” he explains, letting the words hang between them for a bit before either of them said anything else. 

 

He had destroyed SHIELD and, by default, HYDRA nearly five years ago back when he and Bucky were on differing sides, the war resulting because of it nearly costing him his life simply because he had refused to fight the one person he would give the world for- the only thing he remembered before he blacked out being the faint image of the Avenger’s laughing on their brief little missions together, him, Sam, and Nat talking at his tiny dinner table in Washington, and Bucky waving goodbye, clad in that brown military uniform the day before he was shipped off to war.

 

Back then, he was almost sure the evil organization was gone, and for the most part, they were. But there were always villains to each story- always people who deemed that humanity could never really be trusted with something so profound as their own freedom. 

 

They would never really leave him, always manifesting themselves as the thorn in his side, but he was always there in the shadows nonetheless, always looking out for the world that didn’t even know he was working to protect them. 

 

“You ever get tired chasin’ a bunch of people you’ve been fighting for like 70 years?” the brown haired man asks, bringing himself to look at him again despite the sadness he knew was visible in the blue of his eyes. 

 

“Always got a job to do, I guess,” Steve shrugs, the smile settling back on his face, slow and easy. “Can’t forgive ‘em after all, not after what they did to you and her.” 

 

Bucky lets out a chuckle at the last remark, knowing that goofy smile anywhere. “You take care of her, okay? And for God’s sake, Stevie, this time, don’t wait a thousand years to say something,” he says finally, noticing the warm pink glow inch from his neck towards his cheeks in response to his innate ability to simply _read_ him. 

 

“I’ve got no idea what you’re saying, Buck,” the blonde swears, shaking his head in surprised disagreement before he looks at him- really _looks_ this time, seeing him for the man that he was, the man he _knew_ was his best friend now, bits and pieces of him finding their way to the surface and replacing the facade of an emotionless soldier that HYDRA had put there 70 years before. 

 

He smiles then, so wide that it hurts his face enough to give him a giant cramp, and simply welcomes his soldier home. 

  --------------

 

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,” Steve hollers as he leaves Bucky’s hut a little later that night, carrying the sleeping girl he had promised to take care of up that little trail leading back to the crux of the Wakandan civilization a ways away, unaware that she had already stolen his heart that night. 

 

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” the other one finishes, leaning against the opening of his hut with his goats on the outskirts of a country he did not belong in, imagining their return in the morning, their faces heavy with smiles and hair blowing in the faint African wind as they’re accompanied by Nakia, Nat, Sam, and T’challa, his house suddenly happier and fuller than it’s been in months at the presence of the family he could finally call his. 

 

Until then though, he would simply wait right here, like he always has.


	3. Two Birds In A Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve learns to open up to people again and Team Cap finally comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty satisfied with the ending but who knows maybe i'll write more about these two.
> 
> I adore them so much but also I have a Bucky HYDRA fic coming up that i'm currently working on so any epilogue or continuation'll probably be put aside until that ones done.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!

**Budapest, Hungary**

**April 2019**

 

They run into Tony when they least expect it- a rescue operation in Budapest,  a city that had taken an enormous amount of fire from a series of HYDRA bad guys who had decided today would be a fantastic day to burn the entire capital city alive, the faint sound of screams echoing in the distance as the four of them attempted to accompany any remaining civilians into safety. 

 

She’s running away from crumbling buildings and cracking asphalt holding two children covered in ash and blood when he shows up, clad in a squeaky clean hot rod red and gold suit, the very image of him emitting a feeling of hope in every person within a mile radius. 

 

Needless to say, Steve is floored by how fast their cover is blown just with his presence alone and he’s genuinely prepared to gather his team and make a run for it by the time the civilians are safe when Tony lands in front of him, red in the face and tears welling up in his eyes as he holds him there against a crumbling wall in a building on the far side of the city in which they had made their base for the night in order to call for back up and medical aid, his hand whirring with a sense of power and electricity as he takes his friend in- bearded and brown haired, wearing the suit he had made just for him years ago but all tattered and torn with the star that had made him Captain America ripped from his chest, a gaping hole where it once lived. 

 

“Tony-” the blonde tries, his breath coming out in pants as he stands there, bloodied and broken from an ambush he didn’t expect. 

 

HYDRA might be a dead organization, he gave them that, but their lackeys grew ever smarter- it was dumb luck that Tony showed up when he did, saving their asses from practical annhilation in the process of looking amazingly cool. 

 

“Shut it, Rogers,” the man across from him scoffs, rolling his eyes like he had done when they first met on that SHIELD helicarrier thousands of feet above the ground in 2012 when the world had needed them, the Avengers, most. 

 

“Listen,” he tries again, despite the glowing sphere on the palm of his suit’s incessant whirring- knowing full well that he deserved Tony’s rage and fury. “If you just let us go, you’ll never see us again, Tony. I know i’ve hurt you and I can stay out of your life for good if you just call up your friends downstairs and let us go, I  _ promise.”  _

 

His words are desperate and forced through gritted teeth, the wound on his side a messy flurry of blood and exposed bone as he watches his team stand there, watches  _ her  _ stand there, covered in ash and wounds of their own, faces guilt ridden and exhausted as they waited for their fate to be decided. 

 

Tony only sighs in utter disbelief, lowering his hand and shaking it. “You really thought I’d bring the US government into this? Really? Me, of all people? Clearly you’ve hit your head pretty damn hard fighting out there today because I said I agreed with the government on the accords, not that I’d actually do what they  _ said,”  _ he remarks, placing his hand on his metalled hips as he paces the ground of the crumbling building, his patience already run thin, the cards dealt in front of him messily as he lectures the four of them like they were his kids, which in part, was what it felt like because he cared enough to bring them back. 

 

“Tony-” 

 

“ **_No!”_ ** his voice comes out sharper than he intends for it to and for a brief second, it sends Steve back to that fleeting moment that June before the war where he fought with Bucky at the World’s Exhibition of Technology about it being his job, his  _ duty  _ to do what was morally right- to fight for something worth fighting for. 

 

He wonders faintly when his and Tony’s friendship, though messy and a pain in the ass sometimes, had become something he believed wasn’t worth fighting for. 

 

Tony is closer now, the distance between them becoming less and less until he’s inches away from him, the suit ebbing back into the reactor core on his chest like droplets of rain as he rips it off of his t-shirt, dropping it onto Steve’s bloodied lap amongst all the rubble. 

 

“You said that we’d do things together, you said that when the going gets tough, we’d stand together, united,  _ whatever.  _ But where were you all these years, Cap? Where did you run off to? What happened to  _ we?  _ Are we the prevengers? No, were the  _ avengers _ . And when we needed you- no, scratch that, when  _ I  _ needed you, you weren’t there. I’m not gonna let this slide, I’m not gonna just let you slip away again. No more running, no more hiding, no trust,  _ liar,”  _ his words burn a deep hole into Steve’s open side, reaching far deeper into him than any wound that had the capability to heal and twisting at his insides in the most cruel, painful, and utterly deserving way for a man who had betrayed a fellow soldier- no, a fellow  _ friend.  _

 

Staring at the spitting image of the arc reactor in his lap, the very core of who Tony was and always has been, hes struck with the knowledge that Tony had simply given him his heart, something he always had reservations in giving people in the first place, and he had quite literally ripped it from his chest and took it with him to a million foreign countries in the past three years, a stolen treasure he had no plan in giving back. 

 

Tony picks him up then, suddenly- his arms wrapping around him to steady the soldier as he winced in pain. “It’s time to go  _ home,  _ Steve,” he remarks, softer now, the kinder, older, and more exhausted man under the mask of ego and valid anger taking the microphone to speak as he tells FRIDAY to call in the medics and the back up they and this city desperately needed. “You’ve got a whole family who have been worried sick- just let me take you home.” 

 

And amidst the tears in his eyes and the searing pain in his side, Steve only nods. 

 

Like Tony said, it was time to stop running- no more Nomad, just Captain America, just _Steve_ _Rogers_ under all the fake aliases, shadowed alleyways, and hair dye that altered his appearance. 

 

That was who he was, the  _ real  _ him, and he was going  _ home. _

 

\--

 

**The Pentagon, Washington D.C.**

**Three Days later**

 

T’challa steps up to the podium, hands grasping the cold wood as camera’s flash in the large room, a thousand eyes resting on him and  _ only  _ him. 

 

He’s dressed in a suit, all black besides the colorful yellow, orange, and red patterned shawl that hangs over one shoulder, the spitting image of his country’s bright culture and way of life- something that needed to be shown to the world now more than ever. 

 

Nakia and Okoye stand behind them, dressed in a similar garb that proudly depicts their home as they smiled politely, encouraging the man in front of them to do what was correct- to finally open the doors to a country that had decided long ago that it would never mingle in the affairs of it’s brothers and sisters. 

 

He waits until the room is silent and the chatter is minimal before fixing the mic in front of him and leaning forward to speak his mind. 

 

“Wakanda has watched from the shadows for years, a country with much to offer yet a refusal to share it with the world,” he begins, lips pursed as the chatter in the room begins again- a thorn in his side as he dealt with the biggest turn of events in his country’s history- the whole world making a home of itself on his shoulders. “But we cannot continue this. We  _ must  _ not.” 

 

“We will work to be an example of how we as brothers and sisters on this Earth should treat each other. Now more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us,”  he explains, words stern yet compassionate as scans the room, people of different races, colors sitting together to listen to a man they have believed all this time to be the ruler of a third world country- possibly aware of the prospect of this entire situation being inept yet sitting there in front of him  _ nonetheless.  _

 

It’s a game of endless whispers and judgemental glances between his words and the silence he lets take over the world after them, as if allowing a moment for them to make a home in the bodies and minds of men as they spoke to each other in suspicious silence. “But in times of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe,” T’challa states, simply, ending his speech strong and impactful, so much so that it even tugged at something within Tony Stark, a man who had been so divided over his misplaced hate for another man his friend had chosen over him and the betrayal of that same friend he had been forced to witness before his disappearance. 

 

And, as he watches the news broadcast in the little cabin by the lake he had bought with Pepper when she had complained that Stark tower was far too big to really be a home for them and their future children, sitting on the couch with his little girl, he feels something shift inside him, tiny and inherently forgettable, but he feels it anyways. 

 

The reporters raise their hands, a thousand mouths saying a thousand different words as soon as T’challa’s speech ends- overwhelming but predictable from a people that had already seen too much bad in the world to truly trust anything anymore. 

 

He chooses a man, glasses on the bridge of his nose as he held a clipboard close, twirling a bright blue pen between his fingers as he gathered the words to formulate his question. “With all due respect, King T’challa, but what does a third world country from Africa have to offer to the rest of the world?” he questions, a mix of disbelieving and extremely suspicious in an almost rude and uncaring way. 

 

T’challa only smiles at that, ready to face the world with open arms. 

 

\-------------

 

**Avengers Headquarters**

**890 5th Avenue, Manhattan, New York City**

**That Same Day.**

 

Steve watches it unfold from afar, sitting in the dark familiarity of what used to be his room at headquarters, the little home that Tony had made him and the others in the only loving way he knew he was really good at- building. 

 

It’s the same as it was when he left it almost 4 years ago now, grey walls, black and white pictures of him and Bucky, the new Avengers, him and Tony, etc. strewn across the room, and a king sized bed of blue color in the very middle. 

 

He had left his plethora of books here, some of them laying on his bedside table, half empty from him reading these past few days while the other half were stacked on his desk, full of dust from their owners absence. 

 

Surprisingly enough, Tony had been able to logic the government into locking him and his team in the avengers tower rather than a full blown prison by the time they had made it back to America. He had claimed that Avengers HQ was the safest place to hold a team of highly trained superhuman criminals than any place in the world, finally badgering Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross, aka the biggest pain in Steve’s ass since 2016, enough into letting him go through with it before promptly leaving them there mumbling something about them knowing how everything in the house worked before leaving without another world. 

 

Since then, the four of them had largely kept to themselves in order to think the entire situation through, only really gathering to cook dinner together and eat in the spacious dining room on the first floor of the compound, enjoying the fleeting moments of happiness between the feelings of loss and guilt that naturally came with being prisoners of the United States government. 

 

Sighing, Steve fumbles around his newly made bed for the remote to the flatscreen tv mounted on the wall of his room, flipping the switch to the power button and sighing when the silence overtakes him, sweet and patient as it engulfed him completely, his back meeting the blue comforter he had so sorely missed after years of sleeping on top of the rock and itchy cotton of various cheap motel bedrooms all throughout the world. 

 

“Do you  _ ever  _ get tired of sitting in silence in the dark?” the familiar confident voice of business mogul Tony Stark echoes from the opened doorway, out of place in what seemed like the eternal quiet of the Avengers compound, a building that had formerly been one of the busiest in New York- constantly filled with its dedicated staff of former SHIELD agents and new recruits from around the world, all of them lending a hand in helping the planet remain safe for future generations. 

 

Steve sits up at the sudden intrusion of his quiet space, looking over at his former friend’s looming figure leaning against the doorframe, always clad in a suit jacket, button up, and slacks- as if he was always perpetually on the run for the day’s latest meeting. 

 

“Tony,” he starts, the words scratching against his throat in an unfamiliar way, raw from days of disuse as he wandered around the empty rooms of the tower he had once called home, no doubt looking exhausted and worn down, a shell of his former bright self. “You shouldn’t be here.” 

 

Shrugging, the other man pulls the yellow tinted sunglasses off from where they rested on the bridge of his nose, silently making his way across the room to make a home of himself on the black chair pushed taut against the grey surface of his desk before reclining as far as humanly possible, hands flung up in the air in a smug shrug. “What? You might be a fugitive wanted by multiple governments, but you’re not a skunk with rabies, bud,” he concludes, one hand reaching into the inner coat pocket of his suit jacket to pull out a single red lollipop- unwrapping it from its confines and shoving it into his mouth as he continued to speak. “You look like shit, by the way.” 

 

Steve scoffs, running a hand through his hair- a weird mix of artificial brown and it’s natural blonde now that he had stopped dying it almost every other night. “Gee, thanks,” he mumbles, plucking the  _ dumdum  _ that Tony throws in his direction from the air only to inspect it, which is the reaction Tony expects, in all fairness. 

 

He never was one to have a sweet tooth. 

 

“It’s a good shit, though,” the older man clarifies, eyeing him from across the room as if he was a new metal toy he was working on in the lab at the very bottom of Stark Tower, 3am and exhausted yet up regardless thinking of what more he could possibly do for the world, what more he could possibly sacrifice for the greater good. “Charming even, if you ask me- the beards a nice touch. I hear the ladies love it, always seemed to when Thor had one.” 

 

“Thanks,” is all Steve says before they eb into an awkward yet comfortable silence, the two of them dreaming of the times where they would both stay up into the early hours of morning, the sun seeping through the numerous windows of Stark tower as he had thought up strategies for the upcoming mission, Tony on a table across from him, sitting with his legs crossed as he fumbled with the scratched up metal of the helmet of one of his new up and coming suits. 

 

The brunette is the first to break the silence, always the one brave enough to take initiative when it came to something other than tactic and strategies- the both of them obviously emotionally constipated but Tony differing purely because he allowed himself to be transparent enough with the people around him so as to prevent it from ruining any more of his relationships. 

 

He had lost his father because of it, his mother, too, even Pepper at one point, and he’d be damned if he lost anyone else simply because he was a constipated coward that shit out anxiety and social insecurity. 

 

Leaning forward in his seat, his elbows propped against his slack covered legs, Tony studies the man in front of him yet again for a bit before speaking, taking in the changes that made him older, messier, so different yet oddly  _ similar  _ to the man who had left three years ago to live as an uncharacteristic criminal on the run. “Listen,” he begins, his voice coming out calmer, more reserved. “Did you tell Barnes to say what he said out there? On  _ National Television?  _ Was that like a double team kiss ass to get me to fight for your stupid butts again, even after what you did to me? To  _ us?”  _

 

Suddenly, Steve is pale in the face, his ocean blue eyes wide and horrified, as if they were about to fall right out of their sockets and onto the wooden floor in front of them. 

 

He had watched the entire thing happen in the shadows as always, phone in his hand, mid-dial to Bucky’s number when he sees him, clad in a classic black suit, his hair up in a bun as he marches his way onto the floor of the meeting hall at the Pentagon, nodding at a sullen T’challa as the room erupts into an uproar of reporters screaming questions and corrupt politicians sitting dumbfounded, unable to even participate in damage control as the man they had been looking for appeared right in front of their eyes. 

 

Calm and collected, with only a smidgen of fear and anxiety in his bones, Bucky Barnes sits at an empty spot at the table, clearing his throat loudly in a silent announcement that  _ he  _ commanded the room now, him and no one else. 

 

Steve is dumbfounded, to say the least- powerless as his best friend, who, only hours earlier had promised he would simply sit this out, hiding behind the safety of his goat farm on the outskirts of Wakanda and his little hut, pictures of his family strewn across the walls- the home of a man who wanted peace, not the criminal that HYDRA had made him into. 

 

He should have known that Bucky had been tired of hiding, fed up with the people around him sacrificing everything in order to keep him safe, even when it wasn’t nearly worth it. 

 

And so he sits silently in front of a darkened television screen hung on the wall of his makeshift prison as the brunette confesses to his crimes in front of the whole world, the flashes of cameras echoing across the length of his face as he speaks of what HYDRA had done to him as well as the home he was given in Wakanda, something he had remarked he was eternally grateful for, despite the overall trouble it brought his newfound friends, who simply stood with him, unwavering in his bravery and thoughtfulness. 

 

He speaks from his heart, from the memories and thoughts of a man who was a victim, not a perpetrator, taking the brief moments he had left after his initial speech to look dead set into the camera broadcasting the entire meeting to the world, apologizing to none other than the man named Tony Stark for the rift he had caused between him and Steve as well as the parents he had unwittingly took from him, tearing a dam open in the billionaire's chest as he burst into tears in his living room beside his wife, the sense of closure he had been so desperately waiting for the entirety of his adult life finally filling up the gaping hole in his chest for the first and last time. 

 

“Tony, it’s not like that,” Steve says immediately as soon as the suspicion leaves his former friends mouth, desperation clear as day in his throttled voice as he stands in front of Tony  _ now _ , in the present day of his darkened bedroom/prison cell in Avengers HQ,  the blinds drawn against the window mimicking the imaginary wall that always seemed to stand as a barrier in between the two of them- always so close but not quite there yet. 

 

The other man simply holds up a hand, uninterested in what he has to say in a sore attempt to defend himself, the gesture in itself momentarily breaking Steve’s heart. “I asked that because it worked, and I know, I know, I’ve never really been much of a sap, but I guess that meant a lot more to me than that shitty phone you left behind after Siberia. Gave me the closure I desperately needed. I guess I found out that hate was corrosive. Kinda figured it’d be time to flip a new chapter once and for all,” he explains, shrugging his shoulders and shooting his old friend a smile, the metaphysical cement blockage between them crumbling at the seams. 

 

And Steve half expects him to say sike- to yell at him regardless, to blast him into next year with his suit because he  _ knew  _ he deserved every ounce of anger Tony possessed in his significantly smaller body, but it simply never comes, and instead they’re left in a sort of dream like silence that engulfs them in it’s embrace like a cloak of comfort, allowing him to finally let out the breath he had been holding the entire time since he had noticed the brunette standing by his door. 

 

Still, he tries to deliver some semblance of an apology, knowing full well that it wasn’t his strong suit but deciding to attempt crossing the uncanny valley anyways because Tony deserved at least something from his end. 

 

“Listen, Tony, I know I hurt you, believe me, I know. It follows me-” he begins, determined and headstrong as he calculates the perfect apology, maneuvering around the words that swam around aimlessly in his head like a battlefield- the one thing he knew like the back of his hand. 

 

“I follow you? You  _ think  _ about me? Man, Cap, I’m flattered, but you’re out of luck buddy, I’ve got a wife,” Tony interrupts in an utterly annoying and egotistic manner that gets under his skin in such an infuriatingly  _ Tony  _ manner, that he’s almost relieved at the fact that he feels as if he’s going insane, purely because it felt eerily  _ normal,  _ like all the bad blood had suddenly disappated, the wall that had been between them replaced by nothing more than empty space. 

 

Composing himself for a moment via a sharp intake of air through his nose, a sight that only amuses the man across from him all the more, Steve tries again. 

 

“It follows me  _ everywhere.  _ And I know an “I’m sorry” isn’t enough to truly forgive what I did to you, but Bucky,- what Bucky  _ did  _ all those years ago, though horrible and unjust and cruel and something I had no right to hide from you as your friend, it wasn’t  _ him.  _ And trust me, I’m sure he would take it back if he could. I know I would take back ever lying to you, because all you deserved was the truth and I guess I fucked it up,” he sighs, looking 10x more tired in the dull light of the room, only amplified by the depressed flush of his skin, making him look so grey and lifeless that he almost matched the wall directly behind him. “Erskine told me the day before I took the serum that no matter what, nothing should ever change what was inside of me- that I should promise to remain true to myself, not a perfect soldier, but a good man. He’s probably rolling in his grave seeing what I’ve done these past few years.” 

 

The words hang in front of him silently, manifesting themselves as tarot cards that the universe had dealt in front of him, mocking him with the fate of his future in their silent taunts- hidden in the colorful pictures that depict a series of different scenarios, all leading him to this very moment- a sort of judgement day, if you would. 

 

“Yeah, he probably hates your perfect ass,” Tony shrugs, placing a firm hand on the other man’s shoulder as a mechanism to allow him to get up from his perch on the oddly comfortable desk chair in front of him, the gesture turning into two gentle pats on the back, as if he were a stern father that had finally forgiven his son for destroying his mother's favorite vase. “Speaking of ass, we gotta get you a new suit, buddy. When was the last time you washed that thing? It  _ looks  _ like it stinks.”

 

He’s across the room now, tugging at the thick curtains that block the sun from entering the space and placing a hand on his hips triumphantly when he wrangles them open, a pleasant sigh escaping from between his lips as he takes in the sun shining brightly on the world around them, the blue sky above them, and the vibrant green of the grass surrounding the compound, his chest a flurry of emotions he didn’t even know he could feel as the determination settles into his weary bones. 

 

They had work to do and turning towards him the man opposite of him, he only smiles at the sight of  _ Steve Rogers,  _  rough and tattered around the edges but still the same punk ass Steve he had met years before.

 

 “You’ve always been a good man, Steve. Even before I met you, you were nothing but  _ good  _ and  _ pure.  _ You still are, and regardless of how much I really want to punch the teeth out of your perfect skull, we  _ need  _ you,” he finds himself saying, pulling out the circular case he had silently brought in with him from behind the length of the desk chair he had been sitting on, bright red lollipop still dangling stupidly from the corner of his mouth. 

 

“Natasha released the mission reports- all of it. Had no idea HYDRA still had some lackeys out there- even in hiding you were doing the best for the people of America,” he continues, handing him the large expanse of the case in a sort of quiet approval, an encouragment between two friends who had momentarily lost their way in life. “We need that in this world. We need  _ him _ , whether you believe it or not.” 

 

“I don’t know, Tony,” Steve says hesitantly, shaking his head as he peels back the outer black casing that covered his shield- face to face with that same vibrant red, white, and blue he remembered it being even back in the 40’s when he had first felt the thrum of metal vibranium power pulse through his fingertips in the hallways of that dreary, grey walled, army base in New Jersey when he first took up the mantle that would change his life forever. 

 

“Why not? I made it for you, it’s yours... _ Cap _ ” is all Tony says as he stands in front of him, older and wiser beyond his years- a far flung departure from the man he had wrongly judged in that SHIELD helicarrier back in May of 2012 when they had first met- wide eyed and suspicious, a team that could never possibly make it work. 

 

If only the world could see them now. 

 

      ------------

 

“Oh, Steve?” Tony remembers to ask as he leaves the tower later that night after hours of storytelling and catching up over drinks and good food, waiting for Steve’s little  _ hm?  _ In response that let him know he was still listening before speaking again. “What  _ is  _ it with you and.. Y’kno-” 

 

“Do  _ not  _ bring that up,” Steve hisses, the blush settling on his cheeks faster than he can think to stop it, his movements in the large expanse of the kitchen halting in a stiffened tenseness that alarms the man across the room from him as soon as he opens his mouth to the subject. “Not  _ here.”  _

 

Raising his hands up in defeat, the smile on his face smug as he wiggled his eyebrows at his friend, Tony simply shrugs. “I’m just saying. You’re not getting any younger, buddy, and besides, maybe it won’t hurt to try your luck at being a family man,” he explains, a smile tugging on the corners of his lips as he puts the suit jacket he had shed earlier back on. 

 

“Yeah, and what do you know about that stuff?” the blonde questions, eyebrows raised in slight suspicion as he leans against the sink, hands still wet from the dishwashing he had been doing up until that moment. 

 

Tony only smiles at the remark, shaking his head as he shoved his hands in the pocket of his slacks. 

 

“You’d be surprised how much I know,” is all he says before he turns his back to his friend, making it clear of his intent to leave and nearly making it out the door before Steve hollers again. 

 

“Oh, Tony?” his voice echoes, bouncing across the empty walls and causing the other man to turn to face him yet again as he rushes to catch up with him, a mess of hurried footsteps overtaking the empty room. 

 

“Yeah?” comes the older man’s slightly annoyed response. Steve and his delayed words always managing to get under his skin in a way that was so annoyingly  _ Steve  _ that it made him almost wish he had left him to bleed out in Budapest. 

 

They’re standing in front of each other now, still a ways apart but close enough for him to see the grateful smile on his face. 

 

“Thank you. For everything,” the blonde says, simply, making an infuriating show of his awkward shuffling of fingers and feet as he expresses his oddly presented gratitude. 

 

Tony only shrugs again, shooting him a smile that appears on his face like molasses in the spring, slow and steady under the New York rising sun. 

 

“Anything for a friend, even if he was pretty terrible sometimes,” he remarks. “I’ll figure out a way to get you guys out of this, promise.” 

 

And with that, he’s gone in a puff of Spring air as the doors close behind him, leaving Steve alone in a gigantic house that felt the most like home now than it had ever felt before. 

 

\-- 

 

**Somewhere in Manhattan, New York**

**July 2019**

 

The world is especially quiet the day she decides to leave the safety of her house in order to make the long trek up to her husbands final resting place, the length of her clad in a white dress that swayed in the summer wind, the bittersweet taste of citrus peel in the heat of the morning on her lips as she made her way up the familiar cobblestone steps she remembered taking far more often four years ago than she did now. 

 

Along the way, she sings along with the birds in the trees, a sweet melody that hangs high in her chest rather than low on her shirtsleeves- every step she takes more confident than the last and every note that escaped her candied lips all the more pleasing to the ears. 

 

She’s changed, to say the least- the basic, rudimentary foundation of her remaining similar while the rest of her parts were seemingly rearranged and repurposed, a constantly evolving machine that was the highly adaptive human body. 

 

But she was not human- HYDRA had made her a weapon, and years on the run consisting of lies spoken through gritted teeth, fake aliases on passports and driver’s licenses, and acrid smelling motel rooms with shitty lighting and itchy, bed bug infested sheets had simply only made her stronger. 

 

And she wonders if this is the first time ever where she visits him feeling some semblance of wholeness in the chest that had been otherwise hollow since he had left her all those years ago. 

 

When she reaches his grave at around half past noon, the brightened sun seeping through the overhead leaves of the trees above, creating a sort of halo effect around his marbelled tombstone, she spends a great deal of time staring at the words placed in front of her that she always managed to remember, no matter how long she was away for. 

 

Husband, son, brother, the words repeat like a neverending mantra in the back of her mind that used to terrify her, once upon a time- always threatening her with the soul wrenching feeling of utter loneliness and loss. 

 

But things are different this time. 

 

She’s older now, more aware of the toils and troubles of the world that she called home in a sense that allowed her to accept it in some odd way. 

 

She finds it hurts far less, more of a dull ache in her chest rather than the kind of sadness that tore you apart from the inside out, twisting and turning at your intestines until you were torn apart and thoroughly unmasked for the world to see- another statistic in the textbooks that spoke of what grief does to a person rather than a living, breathing, functioning human. 

 

Reaching out to place a hand on the cold marble of the tombstone in front of her, she lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding, feeling his presence behind her in the gentle wind before he could even say a word- the world otherwise silent except for the sounds of birdsong and the flowers around them swaying in the easy going wind. 

 

“How did you find me?” she asks him quietly, turning to face him slowly, her hair swaying in the breeze. 

 

He stands there respectfully, a smile on his pale face as he holds out a dozen flowers wrapped in newspaper, neatly held together by twine in a spitting image of what  **_he_ ** used to come home with on Fridays after work when they would sit by the fire discussing a future they were doomed to never have- at least not with each other. 

 

“Had a hunch,” Steve shrugs, watching her expression carefully as she unwraps the peace offering bound by twine and his own hard work- a beautiful arrangement of giant white lilies and Italian Ruscus that he had spent the better half of the morning putting together, the floral design mimicking the elegance of her dress. 

 

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, her words so soft in delivery that he swore they flew away in the summer breeze. Smiling, she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek before turning to place the flowers at the foot of her husband’s grave- the gesture in itself seeming more like a goodbye than a hello. 

 

“You know, he would’ve liked you, had he known you better,” she claims, smoothing out the newspaper that wrapped around the flowers as she kissed the tips of her fingers, placing them taut against the cold rock of his tombstone. 

 

“I wish I could have met him,” the blonde man behind her states truthfully, the sight of her with her lost love tugging on his heartstrings in a similar manner to when he first visited Peggy’s grave in the lot next to her husband in the cemetery in Washington DC- the faint glimmer of a life that could’ve been manifested in a spark that had watched fade away into the night. 

 

He had remembered his deafening desire to turn back the clock that night to 1945 where he could have crafted a new reality- one where he had never become Captain America, where the mantle was passed to someone else and he had lived a life with her, no matter how short it could have been with his ailments before the serum. 

 

They would have kids and he would grow old with her as they danced in their living room every night, watching their children grow up and ultimately leave them- their life fruitful and full of love. 

 

But the past was the past and it was where fossils came from. 

 

She however, she was right in front of him- his past, present, and future all rounded up into one person standing there, hair blowing in the wind that quiet morning when his world had changed yet again for the better- he just didn’t know it yet. 

 

“I wanna show you something,” she says when she finally finds enough strength in her limbs to stand back up again, her hands wrapping around his forearm for a sense of gravity as she looks up at him through her lashes, sweet and stunning- a breath of fresh air after a cold winter. 

 

And he finds himself powerless to say no to her, only nodding in response, the smile across his face gigantic as he followed her back down the cobblestone steps knowing that he would follow her anywhere. 

 

        ----------- 

 

The first time Steve Rogers witnesses her cry is when a thunderstorm hits the city of New York, rattling the compound aggressively as a downpour of rain attacked the glass windows of the building. 

 

Tony jokes about sending a raven to Thor complaining about the horrible weather, knowing full well that he was in Norway rebuilding Asgard to its former glory, unable to really worry about fixing the weather for his friends, let alone answer his phone more than once a week, and Steve initially laughs, the sound of their talking echoing across the walls enough to wake Morgan- Tony’s three year old daughter that had mumbled something about hearing crying noises in the midst of her slumber. 

 

Knowing that Tony would be busy lulling Morgan back to sleep, Steve had taken it upon himself to find out where the crying noises were coming from and put a stop to them before they woke up another person in the compound- the thunder and lightning bad enough when it came to volume control in the first place. 

 

And so he spent a good amount of time, simply pacing the hallways of the building in persuit of the noise before tracking it down to her bedroom, taking note of the ragged breaths and uncontrollable sobs that came from behind the door before knocking quietly and waiting for a bit before finally opening the door to the crying girl. 

 

Needless to say, Steve found out about her phobia of thunderstorms that night he had witnessed her cry for the first time, sitting with her to ride out the fear and anxiety as he told her one of his stupid stories of Brooklyn in the 30’s, an arm around her shoulders so as to steady her as the storm raged on around them but his words simply took them to a different world.

 

The second time he witnesses her cry was that bright July day when everything in the world seemed to be far too quiet to be anything less than imperfect in one way or the other, the bright smile on her face disappearing upon noticing the broken swing in a field of flowers just outside of the city- laying tattered at the base of a tree overlooking the whole of New York, so high up that the people down below merely looked like ants. 

 

“He made this for me on our anniversary,” she said quietly, sitting down on the grass beside the broken pieces of wood and tattered rope, a single tear rolling down the surface of her cheek soundlessly- a silent painting of the mourning of a past that was now out of her grasp. “I know it seems stupid to cry over a swing but-” 

 

“No, I get it,” he says, always with a smile, always so kindly, so understandingly. 

 

He sits beside her then, making himself some room in the overgrown grass as he looks out at the horizon, taking in the brightly painted picture of pinks, blues, and yellows that was something she held so dearly to her heart. “I feel the same about Brooklyn. ‘S changed since I got back, got bigger, tougher- I don’t really recognize the buildings anymore, but it’s home and this was yours. Never apologize for that,” he continues, snaking an arm around her shoulder comfortingly. 

 

They stay just like that for a bit, watching the flowers sway in the easy summertime wind as time went by ever slowly- like a jar of sweetened honey dripping over a picnic blanket, easy going and ever kind on a summer’s day, two broken people sitting beside each other, more whole together than they could ever possibly hope to be apart. 

 

If only they’d get the hint. 

 

Steve gets up after a few minutes, the movement sudden as he makes a show of analyzing the tree in front of him, lips downturned in a frown and eyebrows drawn low on his forehead as he thought. “I can fix it,” he says, finally when she gives him a puzzled look, the tears on her face drying from the incessant wind. “If you’ll let me.” 

 

\-----------

 

They go on a trip to Home Depot, wearing hoodies and glasses in a sore attempt to remain as incognito as possible. 

 

They weren’t criminals anymore thanks to Tony’s charm and the talent of his highly paid lawyers who had managed to break them  _ and  _ Bucky out of possible incarceration in the deepest pits of hell, but they were still practically celebrities- which was still a fairly large problem. 

 

Nonetheless, they pace through the cement prison that was the closest Home Depot in the New York area, casually discussing which block of wood would serve as the most reliable candidate for a swing. 

 

“Should I google wood types?” she asks him quietly, frowning as he circles the entirety of the wood department for what seems like the hundredth time. “Ooh, can I paint the wood? You think a white would be nice?” 

 

“No, not unless the paint was rain and generally.. Everything proof,” Steve sighs, settling on a good size PVC board, mumbling something about how the material was good for water resistance and outdoor projects that she only barely listened to if she was really to be honest with herself. 

 

“You’re no fun,” she groans, following him out of the wood aisle and into the nearest check out station, the two of them having grabbed the thick, braided manilla rope they needed for the project on the way there. 

 

He only laughs as they’re in line to be checked out, shaking his head as he pulls his wallet out to pay for everything. 

 

“I’ve been told that, trust me,” is all he says as the man behind the counter stares him down in a silent awe that only came from the knowledge of who he was, bagging his items with his mouth half open and simply watching as the two avengers walked away, talking about grabbing something to eat on the way to their destination- an oddly  _ normal  _ conversation between two people that were larger than life. 

 

“I could’ve driven,” Steve says grumpily, a mountain of burgers and fries that could only  _ possibly  _ tame the ravenous hunger of two super soldiers on his lap as she drives them back to the meadow they had started this journey at, quite pleased with her speed in making it to the drivers seat first. 

 

The soldier is sat in the passenger’s seat on the right hand side, sitting fairly uncomfortably in the sheer  _ tininess  _ of the car in comparison to the length of his 6’3 buff self, complaining about the grease in his burger and her unwillingness to let him drive, his mouth stuffed full of fries. 

 

“Do you not remember France?” she asks, sending him a mind numbing glare that immediately shuts him up, a furious little  _ hmph  _ escaping from his lips as he shrugs his shoulders, always so arrogant in times that involved driving a moving vehicle that he was determined to make into an instrument of death with his terrible habit of serial speeding. 

 

She wonders in the back of his mind if he’s ever been caught by highway patrol- frankly at a loss as to what they could possibly say to  _ Captain America  _ about the justice of a speed limit. 

 

Watch out for the signs, I guess? 

 

“Touche,” the blonde beside her grumbles, utilizing a napkin to dab off the extra grease from his dripping burger. “I’m still a better driver, though.” 

 

She scoffs then, shaking her head as she turns up the music in her car, determined to ignore the infuriating man out of time despite the comfort of the situation between them, their playful arguing and accomplishment of the most mundane and normal things emitting a sense of home that she hasn’t quite felt in a person since her husband had died. 

 

\----------

 

“Alright,” Steve says, jumping down from the tree smoothly, his red t-shirt soaked in sweat as he looked at his handiwork, hands on his hips in a sense of silent pride. “I think she makes a pretty good replacement, huh?” 

 

She’s sitting under the tree, smiling at him with that stunning little upturn of her pink lips, faintly reminding him of the cotton candy pink at fairs when he was a child. “Thank you,” she says, sincerely as she smooths out the expanse of that white dress, tiny black polka dots sprinkled across the puffy fabric, making her look like a white rose in full bloom. 

 

He only smiles, watching her sit on the swing before kneeling in front of her, picking at the flowers at her feet, white lilies that curled around her heels in a circle, outlining the shape of his past, present, and future. She raises an eyebrow at him, her lips parting slightly when he places the makeshift bouquet on her lap. 

 

“M’lady,” Steve hums playfully, taking her hand in his to place a kiss on the skin of the back of her hand, an amused chuckle shaking the expanse of her significantly tinier body. 

 

“You know, you didn’t have to do this, any of this,” she says simply, taking the flowers in her hands to inspect them, admiring their simple but elegant beauty in the sunlight- the drooping petals a far departure from the pink peonies  **_he_ ** would give her during their loving yet short marriage. “I owe you something, at least.”

 

“Nah, I wanted to,” the blonde shrugs, his hand still holding hers in a tender yet reserved embrace, always allowing room for her to reject him if need be. “I can’t bring him back or turn back time. But I can at least fix a swing for a woman I admire like crazy and maybe even put a smile on her face in the process. A date would be a start though, if I can get something like that.”

 

The blush on her cheeks is palpable, the color of the summertime peonies that swayed in the wind of the meadow before them. 

 

“A date?” She asks, leaning into him and feeling the gravity of the earth leave her- from now on there was only him and her, broken souls entangled into each other by fate and dumb luck, a feeling that awakened memories, as it always has. 

 

Natasha asks her what a love like that is like, curious and patient as they’re on a mission together in Moscow somewhere around June of that year, Tony and Steve discussing mission plans in hushed whispers at the fire side of the room while Thor hums a song to himself as he sits with Stormbreaker off to the side, bored and itching to go home to his people. 

 

She remembers the feeling of words leaving her at that moment- a flurry of unspoken whispers, tender nods, and the general feeling of  _ home  _ when you’re around them, even if they don’t know it yet. 

 

“It kinda feels like the coming of spring after a long winter,” she says, finally, stealing a glance at the man she so ardently adored- blonde haired and blue eyed clad in a red white and blue suit with a heart far too big for his chest. 

 

Natasha only nods at that, smiling stupidly and wondering when she’d get some of that spring laced love herself. 

 

“Is that a problem?” Steve’s voice drags her out of her memory- honeyed sweet and slow like molasses, his breath fanning over her skin due to their closeness in proximity- the look on his face ever patient as she grasped at him  _ now,  _ the man in front of her- her past, present, and future melded into one.

 

“Not at all, Captain,” is all she says in return before bringing her lips to his for the first time, the two of them surrounded by flowers and entangled in the summer breeze. 

 

He tastes like summer, she thinks. All sweet and real and organic- the richness of candied peel and cinnamon. And he whispers to her soundlessly of all that was good and pure and  _ forever _ \- the painting of a tainted love that was similar to all the rest but new in every single way. 

 

For this time, he had shed the brown 40’s military uniform and the records that reminded him of  _ her  _ while she had replaced the pink peonies and red dress with the pure white of the polka dotted one he held her in that odd summer morning when the world was patient and uncharacteristically kind, white lilies twisting and entangling themselves on her feet in a sort of hope and safety that got in her bones. 

 

\-- 

 

**Brooklyn, New York**

**October 2019**

 

She wakes to the pleasant thrum of another heartbeat against her own, patient kisses placed on her temple as hands intertwined, legs tangled so tightly under the sheets that they didn’t quite know where one started and the other one ended- a perfect painting of two people intertwined in body and soul. 

 

He draws her out of bed like this every morning, the sun slipping through the curtains of their shared apartment, outlining his features- the light blonde of his hair, cut shorter now in the way that it had been before they had run off to a million different countries, his face cleanly shaven and smooth against her own as he pulls her closer only to drag her up and out of bed with him a mere second later. 

 

She cooks breakfast on their days off, Steve always preferring to cook lunch and dinner in their tiny little house, cramped in some corners and cluttered in others but well loved because it was theirs- a little place on the far side of Brooklyn that they had managed to scrape enough money out of their wallets in order to afford, its main characteristic being its cement floors covered only by thin carpet- the expanse of it always freezing the two of them to the core, even in the most humid of winters. 

 

But they adapt and they make it a home of filled bookshelves and easels holding blank canvases, paint neatly stored beside them in little storage units- Steve’s prized record player always smack in the middle of the living room side table, playing tunes ranging from 40’s love songs to 90’s alternative records he borrows from Sam.

 

They even adopt a cat about a month after their move, which seems so much further away now than it really was chronologically. It’s a mangey little munchkin thing, with eyes two different colors and only half of it’s front paw intact, but she takes an immediate liking to Steve when he finds her in one of the dreary alleyways on the way to their house and only ever adores everyone else she meets- her favorite of her many humans being Bucky.

 

It was extra money to take care of another living creature other than themselves and they’re aware of that fact, but they were never opposed to sometimes working the occasional odd job in order to keep everything afloat- Steve teaching art classes at the Veterans center with Sam while she worked weekends at a bookstore that was five minutes away. 

 

They christened the oddly friendly cat with the name Vonnegut, Vonnie for short, living a simple and oddly normal life that concerned two full time avengers- a circumstance they cherished immensely and fought hard to keep untouched- aware of the sheer luck of their situation and ever counting their blessings. 

 

Steve spends his time drawing on the mornings in which she cooks, hair a mess and clad in only boxers and a fitted white t-shirt as he listens to her speak of the stories she brought home from work, both of them leading different teams of highly trained avengers and coming across different things along the way. 

 

She sings to him almost every single day, finding her voice again in the security and patience of their love- her voice sweet and lilting, encompassing every corner of their little flat, the expertly delivered notes burying themselves in his bones in a tedious yet oddly comforting manner.

 

He was never really one to sing, preferring to bury his “musical theater” days in the early 40’s when he had left the bond selling business to become Captain America, the soldier that had saved the world more times than he initially believed was possible. 

 

But then she came along, digging her nails into the base of his very soul and turning him inside out- supplying him with a voice to sing only to accompany her as they fooled around in their living room, him spinning her around in the sunlight only to hear her laugh. 

 

And if he were to really be honest with himself, he acknowledges that it’s a far cry from what he told Tony at the compound five years ago after the Battle of Sokovia and the formation of the New Avengers- the notion that loving a woman was simply something that was reserved to his past self, the man who had waited a thousand years for the correct partner only completely miss the opportunity by 66 years. 

 

Granted, it had never occurred to him then that maybe, his perfect partner was simply just a few years away- the living manifestation of an epiphany as she threw him in for a constant loop, always managing to lead him in circles knowing that the ending would always have him end up right back in her sphere of gravity again, but he was glad that it had happened this way. 

 

They visit marble stones in cemeteries far away but close enough to reach- her husband and his lost love, even himself on the occasional odd days wherein they meandered past his own tombstone- ever reminding him that he was, after all, a walking fossil. 

 

But beyond the flowers they’d leave them and the conversation’s they’d have with the souls that rested under each tombstone every time they visited, he finds a home in her and she in him. 

 

He places a kiss on his sleepy lover’s temple that morning in early October, readying himself for the day ahead of them, the sun warm and inviting on his skin as he fumbles with her long hair, sprawled out across the whitened expanse of her pillowcase- a perfect picture of elegance and beauty that tugged on the heartstrings he had previously believed to be nonfunctional before she had come meandering into his life. 

 

And when they finally get out of bed, they make a home of themselves on the couch by the front door, her reading a book while he simply drew in that little black sketchbook of his- always mysteriously dragging it around with him, whether it be to their little picnics at  _ their  _ meadow or to whichever country they were shipped off to on missions- always doodling something and always refusing to show off his masterpiece to the world around him, even if it was her who was asking. 

 

Glancing over his shoulder, she embarks on a sore attempt in viewing what he had to draw, the book closing with a  **_thump_ ** on his lap as he grabbed her hands, holding them above her head and placing a kiss on her pouting lips. “Think your sneaky, don’t you?” he hums, pushing her back onto the couch until he was squarely on top of her, the sketchbook kicked behind them as he continued to kiss at her temples, the tops of her cheeks, her nose, and down the length of her neck, the laughter escaping her lips sounding like music to his ears. 

 

“What’re you drawing?” she questions, pulling her wrists free from his grasp in order to flip them over, her legs straddling his as she grabbed the leather expanse of the book he had attempted to throw off the couch, holding it up for him to see. “Why’re you always so secretive? You scared I’ll see your stick figures?” 

 

“God, I’m terrified, doll,” Steve hums, a smirk spreading across his face as he takes the sight of her in- the sun drenching her features in an almost angelic way, his heart beating faster just at the thought that the woman he had been chasing for so many years was sitting right in front of him- sharp minded and witty in such an infuriating way that it made him fall more and more in love with her. “Why’re you so keen to see what’s inside, huh?” 

 

She thinks for a bit, crinkling her nose in a false sense of mimicked thought- her upturned lips the color of peaches in the springtime, ripe and rich even in the bite of the New York autumn. “I guess I just wanna know all of you, Rogers,” she says truthfully, placing the book down against his chest in a sense of silent defeat. “If you’ll let me.” 

 

“Go ahead,” is all he says, finally succumbing to watching her flip through the pages of his book, studying the pictures he drew of her, Morgan, Tony, Nat, Sam, Bucky, and Thor- usually from memory littering the ivory pages along with sketches of buildings in Moscow, Kuching, and Taipei, a silent log of the site of adventures they had been on these past few years- always remembered and stored with vivid details of the woman he loved- her hands, her lips, the way she laughed forever imbedded in art he had kept hidden from her all these years due to fear of rejection. 

 

Her lips are parted and strands of hair decorate the sides of her face messily as she touched the charcoal sketches, thoroughly floored by what hid in the corners of his beautiful mind. 

 

And so they sit there, looking at each picture and attempting to remember where they were, what they were doing then, and whether they had gone with the newly formed avengers or during those cold three years of shitty motel rooms and box dye, stealing love struck kisses between each sentence, always sweet and kind- a love that was forever patient. 

 

They hear the doorbell ring mysterious at around half past noon, the two of them still talking there, unmoving on the couch when it catches their attention, pulling them from their dreamlike states. They half expect it to be Bucky or Sam, bored at home and ready to bother them instead, always with a smile on their faces, the lot of them itching for a new adventure on a daily basis- as if their lives on the run weren’t adventure enough to last a whole lifetime. 

 

She gets up, ignoring the annoyed sound that leaves Steve’s lips as he grasps at the air to find her, eyes closed and half asleep due to the comfort of their previous position, in order to answer the door. 

 

“Sam, Buck, you really gotta call or somethin’ before you come over,” she huffs, her arms crossed over her chest as she lectures the men mindlessly, only finding out that she was talking to air a few moments into her speech, the only thing there being a tattered shoe box the color of the bright blue sky in the morning- faint chirps omitting from the air holes that laid on the side, its contents clearly alive. 

 

Steve is at her side now, messy haired and clad in boxers and a t-shirt as he watches her pluck the shoebox from their front door. “That’s not a bomb is it?” He questions, half in a joking manner and half in actual suspicion- he wouldn’t put it past the thousands of people who had made it their life’s goal to kill Captain America through the years. 

 

“Would a bomb chirp?” She frowns, glaring at him through the thickness of her eyelashes and watching as his body shook with the 

 

“Alright, alright. Clearly not a bomb,” he hums, leaning on the wall beside the door as she closed it gently, the box safely in her arms. “Open it, doll.” 

 

And so she does, lifting the tattered blue covering of the tiny shoebox only to find two chicks laying inside- sickly and broken from their abandonment but alive and  _ together _ . 

 

\-- 

 

There is a myth about lovebirds that almost everyone seems to believe.

 

The notion that when one’s mate dies, their loss would bring such intense and excruciating pain to their partner that they would simply die as well, unable to continue without their love. 

 

But she can assure you that this myth is a myth. 

 

Because she, too was a lovebird, abandoned and broken by the world she called home, but even then, she had managed to find a new home in a lovebird that was just the same. 


End file.
